Krogans, Beers, and Pirates
by Ruven aka Lee
Summary: A team of misfit heroes from the Geth attack on the Citadel are hired by an Asari specter to hunt down the pirate Long John Johnson and his Dreadnaught for the Council. Warning Explicate language, violence, and some sexual references.
1. Prologue: The Bar

**A/N: This is the first time I've published any work so please reviews and criticism are appreciated. The story is from a pen and paper RPG me and some friends made based in the ME universe, all OCs come from it. Shepard and his team will not be involved, just mentioned briefly from time to time. Starts at the Geth attack on the Citadel and takes place between ME1 and ME2 to begin with, may bleed over into ME2 but will not get to ME3 since I gave Hei Yui to someone else for their story. Without any further a due read and enjoy!**

_**Prologue: The Bar**_

Hei Yui downed his beer in one long pull. He was drinking human beer, not to get drunk, but for the taste. He loved the taste of the hops they use to make it, would drink the stuff all day every day if he had the creds for it. Too bad he was finally drinking through the last of his haul. Damn Batarians, they said the humans were loaded, but their ship was worth more than the cargo it was transporting, and even that they had only gotten a few thousand for it. Last time he trusts what they say when humans are involved. He signaled to the bartender for another drink with a grunt, he was paid up for at least another ten beers and was going to make sure he got them. He glanced at the other patrons of the dingy little back ally bar he was in, noting that the Drell sitting next to him reeked of cop and wasn't actually drinking. He had what smelled like strong human coffee instead and it didn't even seem to have booze in it at all. Who goes to a bar to NOT drink? Gotta be a Drell thing. He spotted a Turian in the back nursing his beer and barely noticed the Salarian that was sitting off to the side. Sneaky little bastard just seemed to sink into the shadows in the corner and was just watching everyone….. Creepy as hell. Whatever, so long as they didn't bother him.

He reached for his newest beer when there was a massive boom and the whole building shook. What the hell? Alarms began to blare and the lights flickered. Avina's voice began to start calling out warnings of synthetics on the Citadel as a heavy metal door slammed down over the entrance of the bar sealing them in. "Synthetics huh? Heh Sounds like fun." He finished his beer and stood up, "Hey Turian, can you get that door open? I'm feelin like it's time to work off some steam." The bar keeper shook his head, "No can do Krogan, I'm not risking anything my bar or my life just so that you can have some fun." Yui just snorted, "Fine I'll just open it myself." He walked over to the door and leaned down digging his fingers in under the edge of the door and began to strain and lift throwing all his strength into it. The door groaned and then metal screamed as something gave way allowing him to lift up, allowing him to stare into the bright light of a Geths' head. It was kneeling in front of where the door was with an omni-tool glowing on its arm, a guard standing behind him waiting for the door to open. They both paused in surprise for a moment before the Geth went for its gun and Yui simply ripped its head from its shoulders. The guards head explode before Yui even got take a step towards him, the guns shot ringing out from behind him. Yui glared behind him to see the Drell lowering his smoking gun as he sipped his coffee, the green bastard hadn't even really looked when he took that shot. "The hell is wrong with you Drell, that was my kill!" The Drell took another drink of his coffee, "Didn't see your name on it." The Krogan scowled at him, he was looking forward to the fight. "Whatever, I'll just find something else to kill." Yui began to walk away but paused out of curiosity when he heard a notification noise from the Drells ear piece as he got a message, the Drell listened for a few seconds before nodding and standing up bringing his coffee with him, "Wanna do some real damage? I just got a message from C-Sec telling me where the real fight is if you're interested. Lots of Geth to kill." Yui grinned, "I might be interested. Even if it is for C-Sec."

The Drell nodded and glanced back as he heard movement behind him. The Turian and the Salarian stood up and moved up behind him as well. Yui glowered at them, "Friends of yours Drell?" He shrugged, "No but I won't turn down more help. I'm Drellius, Scooge Drellius. What about you guys?" The Turian looked like he wasn't really even there as he said, "Gogzurah." The Salarian piped out, "Sheldon Cooper." and all eyes turned to the Krogan. "Hei Yui." They glanced around to see who he was talking to before looking back confused as the hulking reptile glared down at Scooge, "Where we going Drell?" "The Presidi- hey where are you going?" Yui started lumbering down the hall and called over his shoulder, "To grab a car. What you planning on walking there?" The group glanced at each other and hurried after him, "Hey er you wait! Don't you want to know where on the Presi-" the Drell was cut off by the sound of gun fire as they rounded the corner just to run head first into a combat team of Geth that was standing around the rapid transit controls. The bullets slammed into the teams shields as they all dived for cover. All except Yui who left out a booming roar and charged head first into the squad instead sending Geth flying as he bulled into them like a bowling ball into pins, crushing bodies and tearing off limbs. Supporting fire from the team started ripping into the scrambling Geth as they struggled to draw a bead on the raging Krogan in midst and deal with the longer ranged gun fire from the rest of the team. In all the fight didn't last long though the Krogan emerged with more than a few wounds to show for it.

He didn't seem truly hurt by them though, instead his eyes gleamed with fierce joy, "Now THAT was a fight! Lets go find more." Yui walked over to the panel and glowered at it when it didn't show him the usually options, instead it showed seemingly random lines of code. "The hell Drell did you fuckers in C-Sec decide it was a good idea to lock down transit in emergencies? Get your green ass over here and unlock the damn thing." Sheldon rolled his eyes at the Krogan "It must be some kinda Geth encryption. We won't be able to use it, I certainly don't know anything about Geth programs." Scooge suddenly pushed past Yui, "I'll fix it!" Sheldon just scowled at him, "What do you plan on doing? It's not YOU could possible know how to undo it. I mean look, you're not even wearing an omni-" Scooge reached the panel and with a mighty flourish punched the display. Sheldon shook his head, "Like that would ever-" there was a small sparking from the display before an electronic voice piped out, "Please pick a destination." Sheldons jaw dropped and Yui laughed, "That's my kinda hacking! Comon lets get going, I don't want to miss out on all the-" a noise from Scooges ear piece and as he moved off to take the call a static filled message came over the rest of teams omni-tools, "Help! Were a medical clinic….under attack from the Geth… wounded…need help! I repea…"

Sheldon tapped out some code on his omni-tool before looking up, "Its coming from near by. In this Ward by the looks of it." Scooge came back over to them, "C-Sec just informed me that the Geth just captured an armory that's not too far by rapid transit. I told them that I had a team with and that we could handle the job." Yui perked up a bit, an armory eh? Sounds like his kinda place. But wait… that emergency call. That was a clinic. Clinics are usually emergency shelters too. Everyone goes to those in these kinda situations. This ward is full of Asari. They would go to a shelter to hide. Which means the clinic is full of beautiful blue Asari. And if someone big strong and brave went and saved them they would be oh so grateful… "We can't go to the armory. There is a clinic full of As- er civilians that need our help. Or I should say are attracting Geth to them like Varren to a fresh kill. That's going to be MUCH more fun than some armory." Scooge blinked in surprise, as did the rest of the group. "Er you don't want to go to the armor full of big guns?" Yui wasn't even paying attention, he just walked over to the car with images of grateful Asari naked in his hotel room to thank him for saving them all dancing through his head. Scooge just shrugged, and the rest of them simply filed into the car after him.


	2. Chapter One: Clinics and Geth

_**Chapter One: Clinics and Geth**_

The team piled into the transport and set off for clinic. The Turian had insisted on being in the driver sear, while the rest of the team simply sat where they could. They flew in silence and as they approached the clinic they could see a Geth combat team staked out in front of the clinic preparing to make an assault on its entrance. A couple them spotted the car coming in and began to fire on the transport sending bullets pinging off the car and a few punched through the glass to hit the teams shields. As they began to land the rest of the combat team turned their guns on the car shattering the passenger windows and sending the team ducking. The car landed and the team opened fire, a sniper shot from the Turian punched through ones shields like it wasn't even there and came to stop in the processor of the unit behind his target while the Sheldon sent a combat drone into the fray and Scooge opened fire with his pistol putting down another one of the units. The team scrambled into what little cover the bullet ridden car could provide, all but Yui. The Krogan let out a roaring laugh and charged head first into the gun fire, his shields taking the brunt of the damage before failing and sparks began off his heavy armor. He slammed into the first Geth sending it's broken body flying into the rest of the group knocking over another unit. He swung his shot gun like a club cracking another Geths head open while a shot from Gogzurah took another unit off its feet. Pistol fire from Scooge another two down and a shock from Sheldons combat drone left a Geth dancing till he took it out with a well placed pistol shot. Yui grabbed one of the Geth troops gun and forced it up before punching the unit in its optics leaving it disoriented. He lifted the Geth into the air by its arms and slammed it on top of one of the other Geth troops crushing the both of them into a mangled tangled mess. He turned to the last of the Geth just as a last sniper shell took it off its feet.

Yui glowered at the Turian but didn't say anything, he was in a good mood after the fight and couldn't wait to go into the clinic and introduce himself as everyone's savior. He strutted into the clinic as a disheveled Salarian doctor hurried out past the handful of C-Sec agents that had been trying to hold the clinic before the team arrival. "Thank you so much you have no-", Yui interrupted, "Yeah yeah whatever. Everyone in here all….. right….." his voice trailed off as he got a good look at the civilians he had just saved. His face dropped into a glower and he spun around storming out muttering, "Of course this place just HAD to be filled with fucking Turians, why wouldn't it be a Salarian clinic filled with them? Nothin but Turians, humans, even fucking Volus but NO there can't be ANY Asari, would be too damn convenient if there was, and none of the people there were even blue….." the team blinked at him as he stormed past them muttering obscenities. The Drell shrugged, "Hey uh you, you got the frequency for C-Sec? You might want to hear what's playing on there right now." Yui just glared him for a second before grunting, "Fine, no I don't have it. Why don't you give it to me?" Scooge nodded and sent the whole team the info and they all listened in to Executor Pallin's message, "To all C-Sec operatives C-Sec HQ is over run, and Presidium is under Geth control, we need every gun over here to contain this NOW."

Scooge reached up to his ear piece but Yui beat him to it, "Hey Turian sounds like you could really use some help over there. If you don't mind payin for it I got a team over that might be interested in helping." Scooge frowned, "But he just ordered-" "Drell I'm about to get you a big damn bonus so unless you want me to keep your share of the creds shut the fuck up and follow my lead." Scooge looked uneasy at that but nodded anyway. Pallin answered back angrily, "Who the hell are you and how did you get- never mind it doesn't matter, the Citadel is burning the Geth are taking over and you want to talk CREDITS! The hell is wrong with you?" Yui snorted, "I'm a merc I don't do shit for free especially for a Turian. I got a four man team here that just ripped through a good dozen Geth on our own without a scratch," the team glanced at the blood that drying on spots of his armor but didn't say anything, it was clear they weren't bleeding and after what he just did to the metal bodies of the Geth they weren't going to ruin his pay check; "So unless you want that kinda fire power and shit to go to waste lootin that's fine with me. It'll be your loss." There was a short pause before Pallin answered, "Fine I'll pay you a thousand credits for the job." Yui scoffed, "Like hell you will, I can get more from selling the med supplies in the clinic I'm standin next to. Ten thousand EACH is more like it." Yui grinned to himself, he knew that the Executor needed all the help he could get and didn't have time to argue money right then.

Sure enough he came back with, "Fine damn it just get over here as fast as you can." Yui's grinned widened, "Deal. Drell call us up another car , this one ain't goin anywhere." As if to reinforce his statement smoke began to rise from the engine area of the transport and something on the control counsel exploded into sparks. Scooge nodded and moved over to the terminal to call it up as Yui move among the bodies of the Geth and began to remove their heads. He noticed the others staring and growled, "I plan on charging extra if there's too many Geth I gotta kill, and I don't feel like counting. This is just easier." He went back to what he was doing which covered his hands in white synthetic blood. He finished by the time the car got there and tossed the heads into the trunk before getting in himself. "Right boys and girl," staring pointedly at the Salarian when he said girl, "it's time to go save C-Secs ass."


	3. Chapter Two: Saving C Sec and A New Job

_**Chapter Two: Saving C-Sec and A New Job**_

Yui and the others piled into the new cab and started off to C-Sec. The ride was long enough that Yui got bored, he glanced at the Turian beside him before looking out the window again, "So where you learn to shoot Turian?" Gogzurah shrugged, "I was a C-Sec sniper. Quit awhile ago though, got tired of the bureaucracy of it all. Haven't really done much since then. What about you what do you do for a living?" Yui grinned, "I kill things. Mostly Turians." He cackled at that, it wasn't entirely true but he wanted to give the Turian something to think about. He was surprised when Gogzurah laughed too, "Yea they're all dicks. Kill all I don't care." Yui stared at him now, was he serious? Weird lizard. Or were they bugs? He remembered hearing somewhere that they had wings at some point so maybe they were birds. Yui had decided to ask him when suddenly the car jumped and began to pick speed, aiming itself at a building in front of them. He glared at the Turian who was typing madly at the controls which were flashing random lines of code, "Hey the fuck is this, don't you see that were aiming at a wall? Who taught you to drive?" Gogzurah answered without looking up, "Not me, something just took control of the car. I can't get it back!" Yuis scowl deepened, "It's a fuckin machine, just push the off button or somethin.." Gogzurah shook his head, "I'm locked out! Damn it I can't do anything from here." Sheldon let out a very put upon sigh, "Idiots. Here let me, I at least know what I'm doing." His Omni-tool lit up and he began typing away. The building in front of them was coming much faster than even Yui was comfortable with when the controls turned back to normal. Gogzurah took control and managed to swerve out of the collision course barely in time, leaving sparks and paint on the building behind them.

As they came around the corner they slowed and found themselves over the landing pad to C-Sec where three large Geth were gathered, apparently over seeing the operations or something. Scooge scowled, "Looks like we're going to have to find some where else to park, this place is too hot. I know of another, it's a 20 minute walk from here but it should be worth-" Yui shook his head, "Nope now or never guys, and this is our best chance to take out all three of them in one hit." The other just stared at him, "And how are we going to do that?" Yui grinned, "Like this" and reached past Gogzurah and took control of the car on him sending the car careening towards the landing pad. Or more particularly the Geth on it. The Turian froze in shock before trying to correct, but the moment of hesitation was too much and Yui was laughing like a maniac as they slammed into the Geth lifting the machines into the air with them before they all slammed into the wall of the adjacent building. There was silence for a few seconds before groans of pain rose from the team, which was over shadowed by Yui laughing again, "YES! Now that's how you make an entrance!" Sheldon shifted a bit to glare at him, "You dumb fuck you could have killed us all with that! What were you thinking!" Yui laughed harder at that, "Relax Squishy, it's not like that's the first time I've done that. I knew we would be fine. These cars are designed to survive worse. Those Geth made some nice air bags too, and we took out the Geths bosses so everything worked out fine. Now comon, the rest of the Geth would have noticed the crash and will be coming to investigate." They tried the doors but the car had warped when they hit and the doors were stuck. Yui just grunted and started slamming his shoulder into the passenger window to make a new door.

He finally managed to break the glass and bend the metal enough for him to climb out the same time the Geth that had come to investigate rounded the corner. When the team in the car scrambled for their guns as the Geth lift their rifles and began to fire on the only target they saw, Yui. The Krogan dived to the side, and hurried into the dinning area of a near by café and over turned a table to use as cover. "Give me some fuckin covering fire! I can't hit them from here!" Yui was angry now, he was being shot at and couldn't do a thing about it. The rest of the team finally got their guns out and opened up on the Geth, taking out five of the twenty troopers there. Most of the remaining Geth turned on them and returned fire, peppering the remains of the car and the team hiding in it with gun fire. Yui glanced over his rapidly disappearing cover and spotted a single larger Geth standing in the middle of all the others. He grinned, he had found his target. "Suppressive fire now!" The team opened up again taking out another four synthetics while Yui broke cover and charged the Geth. Bullets whizzed around him and his shields flared, held under the first few hits before failing leaving the Krogan open to fire. Yuis armor sparked like mad and a few shots found their mark making blood blosum on the exposed parts of his arms and legs. Before they could do much more than minor damage though, Yui slammed into them, sending Geth tumbling to the ground as he bull dozed his way through to the large Geth at the back of the group.

He trampled a trooper to death on his way past and fire from Scooge and Sheldon took out another four and a sniper shot from Gogzurah slammed into the largest units chest, flaring its shields but not punching through. It did stagger the synthetic spoiling its aim on Yui and causing it to instead take out the Geth trooper beside him. There was a sudden blare of heat alarms from all their guns after that as well as Sheldon activated a program to over heat them. Yuis gun was over heating as well but he wasn't using it anyway. Yui slammed into the massive Geth bulling it over onto the ground. He lifted his gun, grinning like mad and began to beat the AI with it as the remaining Geth turned on him and opened fire. The rest of the team put the last of the combat units down as fast as they could, but they could still see the blood coating the Krogans armor as he slumped on top of the Geth he had been fighting. They all were bleeding, the damaged car hadn't offered much in the way of protection, and they had begun to crawl out of it when Yui surged to his feet roaring in triumph holding up the head of his fallen foe. With a grin he trudge back to them, kicking a Geth on his way past, "That was FUN! Lets go find more!" The other just moaned, "Can't you at least pretend that all that hurt you? Some of us don't regenerate like you do." Yui just rolled his eyes, "Big babies. Fine I'll fix you up first THEN we go kill some more." The others looked at him incredulously as he walked up to them and looked them over then got to work. "I ran with an Asari pirate band for awhile, and after a big job where we had a fire fight I learned the dumb fucks never got themselves a medic. Since SOMEONE had to fix them up I got down to learnin the basics and shit. That and bein the doc lets you see a lota blue asses….." Yuis mind drifted back to the past as he finished patching up the last of the teams wounds.

Once he was done they started to move out when a massive explosion went off over head, they looked up to where the noise came from and found themselves watching as a titanic spider like ship was ripped to pieces by Alliance forces. They glanced at each other and with shrugs moved on picking off the occasional lone Geth but meeting no real resistance till finally they couldn't even find any stragglers. They had settled down at a bar to take a break when a message came over the com channels on their Omni-tools, "This is Executor Pallin, C-Sec head quarters has now been secured. All units are to move to stand by till given new orders." Once that was complete Yui grunted, "About time. Right we need to get to C-Sec to get paid. You Drell, you were a cop. Get us there." Scooge nodded, "Sure I know where it is." He led them through the Citadel till the arrived at the Presidium lake and stopping at the edge of the lake he spun with a flourish and threw his arms out in presentation, "Welcome to C-Sec boys!" Yui stared. "It's a lake." Scooge looked behind him and did it again, "Welcome to C-Sec boys!" Yui stared for a moment longer and then shove the Drell into the lake. He turned and started searching for a sign to figure out where he was leaving Scooge floundering in the lake. Gogzurah fished the now soaked C-Sec agent out of the lake while Yui studied a near by map set up for tourists. Scooge straightened himself up before marching up to the Krogans back and punching him. Yui turned slowly to find the Drell standing behind him glaring, "That was for-" He didn't finish the sentence before Yui had him up in the air by the front of his shirt. "Do you want to go swimming again?" Scooge reached forward and felt Yui's face for a moment before, "No." Yui stared a him once again. What the hell was wrong with this Drell? Was he retarded? He finally shook his head a little, "Then never hit me again. Or next time you go swimming it will be in space." Scooge grinned, "Oh boy!" Yui just set him down and decided not to question that. "Come on. I figured out where C-Sec is from here." The team moved out and after only about 5 minutes or so of walking found themselves in a very busy and heavily damaged C-Sec.

It didn't take them long to find that the center of all the bustle was the Executor himself. Yui shoved his way up to Pallin before slamming his hands down on his desk, "Hey Turian. I'm here about getting paid for killing Geth. Ten thousand per man on my team is what we agreed on." Executor Pallin dealt with an agent that was standing next to him before turning back to the team, "You mercenary, according Avina's records a group lead by a Krogan flew a transport into the Geths main camp. Not long after that the Geth seemed to lose a lot of their group co-ordination when they lost their command hubs. I assume that was you?" Yui chuckled at him, "Is that what we found over there? I just saw a group of big ass Geth and thought it looked like fun." Pallin just shook his head, "One way or another it seems that you're why we managed to retake C-Sec so I guess we need to thank you." Yuis grin widened, "Damn straight you do Turian, your little pussy cops couldn't have handled that if they had wanted to." Pallin gave him a dirty look, "Watch what you say Krogan. It's me who's paying you. Or not as the case may be." Yui's smile disappeared at that and he glowered at Pallin. He needed the money so he couldn't afford to be too picky. Even if it was a Turian he was dealing with. "For now I'm sending you co-ordinates to some last pockets of resistance. Take care of them and then we'll talk pay." Yui glowered at him but nodded, "Fine. We're going."

Over the next three days they were sent all over the Citadel cleaning up pockets of Geth that C-Sec couldn't crack on their own. Finally the last of them were gone and the team led by Hei Yui went to Pallin's office. They had decided it was high time they got paid. As they entered they noticed an Asari standing next to Pallin, they had been talking but stopped when the team entered. Yui gave her a once over followed by a slow more appreciative look. She had red tattoos a cross her face and wore sleek Asari commando leathers. He tore his eyes away from her and got right down to business, "Pallin I want my money. I want my money and I want it NOW, I've cleaned up every mess your little bitch agents couldn't and I aint cleanin up any more till I'm paid." The Turian sighed, "This is who I was talking about. He might be an asshole even by Krogan standards but he's good at his job and is fast about it. He got in a fist fight with a Geth Prime and won, and his regeneration is off the charts. His team is just as good as him too, ex-C-Sec and STG the works. Perfect for what your being sent after." The Asari nodded, but Yui scowled, "I'm here about getting paid for what I've already done not get dragged into whatever the fuck she's here for. Pay up. Now." Yui and Pallin glared at each other till finally Pallin tossed a credit chit on the desk in front him, "I suggest you listen to what the women has to say as well. She's a newly appointed Specter looking for a team." Yui snatched his money up before turning and paying the rest of the team their cut. He was many things, but he would never cheat his team out of their cut. He turned back to the Asari and nodded, "Alright now that's done, what is your doing that should interest me?" She shrugged, "Pirate hunting. If you're interested in it you get paid fifty thousand for it plus salvage."

Yuis eyes glinted, "Which pirate and what did he do? No Specter would be sent out to just do some pirate hunting, they would have to be a major player that pissed off the Council in a big way." She shrugged again, "They haven't given me a name but he stole a pair of dreadnaughts while everyone was fighting the Geth. No one even noticed until they realized it wasn't among the wrecks." Scooges eyes got big and he shoved his way to the front of the group, "IT WAS LONG JOHN JOHNSON. It has to be, no one else would be that devious, that intelligent to be able to pull this off!" Yui glowered at him, "Drell you couldn't even tell me where C-Sec was a few days ago, and now your trying to declare that some random asshole with some ridiculous name is responsible for the theft not one but two major military ships. There is no chance in hell I'll believe you. Ever. About ANYTHING. Now shut up. So what you want us to help you hunt this guy WHO EVER HE IS," he glared at Scooge who had whispered, Long John Johnson when Yui had said guy, "You want us to hunt him down with you?" She thought for a moment, "Depends, what do you know about pirates?" Yui grinned at that, "More than mister C-Sec does." Pallin rolled his eyes, "And what makes you think that?" Yui's grinned widened into a toothy smile, "How bout spending three hundred years as a pirate? You that might give me a bita insight into things?" Pallin's eyes narrowed at him but he didn't say anything. The Asari nodded at Yui, "Alright… well alright then I guess you're what I'm looking for then. I'm Veneria, you can call me Scarlet." Yui shifted and held out a hand, "Names Hei Yui. This is my team the Turian is Gogzurah, the Salarian is Sheldon Cooper, and the Drell is an idiot known as Scooge Drellius." They all shook hands before she motioned for them to follow her. "I've got a ship in port already waiting for us. A small ship, made by the Salarians for stealth ops. We're short a pilot right now though." Gogzurah raised a hand lazily, "I'm a pilot. I can fly pretty much anything." The rest of the team looked at him surprised while Scarlet just nodded, "That'll work fine. Then we can leave whenever we want. We just need to name her first." Yui thought for a moment before smiling devilishly, "I've got the perfect one."

A few C-Sec agents that knew what Yui and his team had done for the Citadel or had worked with them cleaning up the remaining Geth were there to see them off when a few hours later the team took off. They left in the newly name Defiant, the ship was a new ship, clean white paint and black paint job fresh and new, the paint on its name barely even dry. Its first flight was proud, and majestic as it left the dock and promptly scraped itself on one of the docking clamps on its way out, leaving a long scratch across the length of the ship, messily bisecting the ships name. Yui groaned as Gogzurah corrected quickly and Sheldon ran a systems check to make sure he hadn't damaged anything important. It was going to be a very long trip, he could tell already. Well he sighed mentally, at least I have nine thousand credits worth of beer to keep me company.


	4. Chapter Three: Ship to Ship

_**Chapter Three: Ship to Ship**_

Hei Yui moved off the bridge deciding to find himself somewhere to stay. It wasn't a big ship, it was only meant to hold a handful of crew members and all of them would normally be the size of a Salarian, it was not Krogan friendly. He went down a level to with the medical bay, cargo and armory thinking that the cargo bay would be best. On his way past the armory he stopped and looked in wondering what was in it. As it turned out there was nothing right then, and Yui was surprised at how big it was. In fact, he thought with a grin, it was just right. Scarlet was the first to find him, she paused when she saw him setting up a bed in the armory. He looked at her and without pause declared, "This is my room. You guys can use that corner," he waved to the corner closest to the entrance, "for your equipment. The rest is mine, and I'll kill anyone that touches anything in it." Scarlet shrugged in answer, "Ok. Whatever." Yui nodded, "Good. I think we're going to get along just fine. So what's first, we got some where to start looking for this guy?" Scarlet cocked her head to the side, "Got any suggestions? You are the expert." Yui thought for a moment, "Weeell I've been on break for the last month or so, so we're going to need to find someone who can give me the latest news….. We can't go to my usual ports, not in this ship. Would be too suspicious. So how bout we go chase down an distress beacon or two and see if we can't find ourselves a pirate to interrogate." Scarlet nodded, "The Council thought so too and has been forwarding us distress signals already. I just wanted to see if you agreed. I'm setting a course for the most recent one now then." Yui nodded and followed her up to the bridge where they settled into their selected stations. Yui picked the missile launchers as his station, them being the largest guns the ship supported. He settled in before producing the beers he had brought with him and began drinking. Scooge moved to one of two Guardian laser stations while Sheldon had taken the ECM chair being the only one that actually knew how they worked. Scarlet took over the other Guardian laser station while Gogzurah piloted.

They all settled in with the only sound being Yui slurping loudly at his beers with his chair turned about as he studied their newest team member. Technically she was their boss but as far as Yui was concerned this was only a temporary arrangement till he asserted himself properly. Near as he could tell she was nothing but kid, couldn't be more than three hundred, and he wasn't going to have someone half his age giving him orders. He decided to it was about time to find out more about her, what could this girl have done to earn herself a specter position? "So Red you're new to this Specter thing aint ya? What'd you do to get it?" She turned and looked at him, "Saved some people. I found an emergency center whose C-Sec agents were being slaughtered and decided to help out." He frowned at that, "That doesn't sound like it would be that note worthy. Hell we did that… so what did you do that was different." She shrugged at that, "Dunno but it was up in the embassies so that probably had something to do with it. That and there was a lot of them. A good forty or fifty. I ambushed them and there was still a couple C-Sec agents there so I don't see what the big deal was. My old commando unit could have gotten it done it faster if they had been here. That and about half way through the fight they seemed to have lost something, like they weren't fighting as hard or maybe as well as they had a few seconds ago. Almost like they just lost some of their skill or something." Yui nodded, "Yea that was us. We took out a two or three primes and their guards, and after that we heard from C-Sec that it did somethin to the Geth, I don't know what it's all about you have to ask some egg head. Like Squishy over there, he seems smart enough for it." Sheldon ignored both of them as Yui and Scarlet watched him for a few seconds before shrugging, if he didn't want to hop into the conversation they weren't going to force him. "Anyway if you wanna see what I killed I got the heads back in the armory. Which just so everyone else knows is my room. None of you fuckers are allowed in unless you damn well knock first." The others didn't say anything. Yui emptied his beer and set the empty on his console before switching to a full one.

After a few hours of silence punctuated only by Yui switching beers and Scooge getting up from time to time to refill a coffee cup he seemed to have glued to his hand they finally reached the area where the distress beacons had been showing up. They drifted through the system silently for a few days, making small talk, swapping a few war stories, or in Yui's case stories of a few of his more interesting jobs. They noted that he seemed to think more about his time with an Asari pirate band more than anything else, he had been the second in command and enforcer for their leader Natalya. When a new beacon lit up the in the system most of the team was glad for it, Yui seemed to become more and more restless as things went on and none of them wanted to see what happened when a Krogan went stir crazy. They jumped into the system activating their stealth systems and started scanning to find the ship. They found two ships, one of them a small frigate that was docked with a freighter and clearly the pirate vessel. As they began their approach the frigate pulled away from the freighter and moved to intercept them, which Gogzurah frowned at, "Sheldon aren't the stealth systems active?" Sheldon grunted, "Looks like they managed to spot us anyway." Yui grinned while turning from the pile of beer cans he had spent the last few days gluing together, "That's fine with me, I prefer a straight fight anyway." He powered up his weapons and started searching for the target while Gogzurah started taking evasive maneuvers. All in all the fight didn't take long, Yui's missile managed to punch through the shields and hit something important to take out the ships power, the Guardian lasers finished it off while his weapons reloaded.

They moved to where the other ship had docked and took over the air lock they had used. The team moved up to their air lock and Yui took the lead position. "Right there's no way they don't know we're coming. Not after we took out their ship, so prepare for an ambush." The others rolled their eyes, "We have done this kinda stuff before you know. We know what we're doing." Sheldon pointed out. Yui shrugged, "Hey you all look like kids to me. Gotta make sure you know what's what." There was a hiss as the air locks began cycling and Yui lifted his helmet and locked it into place. He didn't want to be caught off guard if they had vented the atmosphere to clear out the crew. The doors parted and small arms fire slammed into Yui's chest as he moved forward. His shields didn't last long, it seemed that it was modded to take them out, but between his armor and tough hide most of the bullets didn't do much damage. Scarlet ducked behind Yui and used him as a shield to get closer before tossing a singularity past him and over the pirates behind the blockade. All except two of them was lifted out of cover, those two went down fast to Gogzurah and Sheldon. Scooge fired into the singularity taking out another before Scarlet detonated it slamming the remaining pirates into the walls. Yui chuckled when he saw that the force had cracked open their armor and pulverized the men inside, "Looks like Batarian salsa for dinner tonight." The others gave him a queasy look as they moved past. Yui stopped suddenly and turned to Gogzurah, "Hey Turian, you should stay with the ship. Don't wanna come back and find out these damn pirates stole our ship while we were out." Gogzurah yawned in answer, "Alright whatever." He moved back into the ship and locked the doors after him.

The rest of the team moved into the ships cargo bay. A glance around told them that there wasn't much to the ship, the crew quarters were up front and the only other section was engineering. Yui glanced at the boxes thoughtfully, what they were hauling? He shrugged, they could check to see if it was worth selling later, "Right lets start with engineering. Don't want them to booby trap the engines or somethin while we're busy." The team nodded in agreement with him and they moved down the ship. No one bothered them in rout and Yui managed to find a shipping manifest next to a dead crew member on the way. He glowered, not only was it all food rations it was the cheap kind. They moved up the door and Yui took position in front of the door again. He nodded to Sheldon who popped open the door while Scarlet took up her position behind Yui again. The doors opened and Yui moved into the room surprised that he wasn't being shot at already. A group of troops were standing on the far side of the room looking surprised at their appearance. They clearly had expected that the ambush at the entrance would be enough to stop the team. Yui spotted an engineer in glowing armor standing with a pair of assistants doing something with a control panel, he decided to leave the rest of the team to deal with the combat team while he took care of the engineer and charged across the room to them. Scarlet tossed a singularity above the other pirate group lifting up three of them. Scooge picked off another while Sheldon shut and locked the door behind them to stop re-enforcements. Scarlet lifted another trooper up with her biotics and threw him across the room into the engineer staggering him as Yui finished closing the distance and killed the first assistant. Scooge picked off two of the floating troopers while Sheldon finished off the third and Scarlet hurled the last trooper into a wall. Their fight was over before it began, and Yui punched the last assistant knocking him out and he grabbed the pirate by his shoulders before he hit the ground. The engineer lifted him shotgun and put a shot into Yui making his shields flash before Yui slammed the last assistant into him. The others stared as Yui beat the engineer to death with his own subordinate before dropping the bloody mess that was left him to the ground.

He turned back and moved to the rest of the group growling, "Sheldon go see what these guys were up to. I don't want this piece of shit blowing up on us when we're not looking." Sheldon just glowered at him before he moved over and checked the systems. "The ships fine. He was going to set it up to blow but we got to him before he could do much more then get in the system." Yui nodded, "Then lets get going. We still gotta clear the cockpit." They moved back to the door and it opened into a hail of gun fire. The team ducked to the sides, Yui who took the brunt of the fire dove to the side as the shots shredded his shields and a few of the armor piercing rounds punched holes in his armor. He ignored the blood seeping down his armor and pulled out a pair of hand grenades and called to Scarlet, "I'm going to toss a pair of grenades into them. After the second goes off I want you to use your biotics to throw me in there." He didn't wait to see if she agreed and tossed the first grenade in. After it went off sending the pirates ducking he spun around the corner and threw the other, this time into the group itself as they came up. The grenade dazed them and Scooge picked off a pair of the pirates. Blue fire engulfed Scarlets arms as she lifted Yui and hurled him into the ambush party, his flight took him into three of the pirates, killing them out right with just his massive weight and he came up scrambling, as Scooge took out the last of them. Yui grinned and laughed, "Would you look at me, I'm a freakin rocket." He moved off towards the cockpit laughing. They met no more resistance till they got to the front where they found themselves facing a locked door. Yui grunted, "Think you can get that open Squishy?" Sheldon scoffed, "In seconds." and moved to start working on the door. Suddenly the intercom system activated, "I wouldn't do that if I were you….." Sheldon paused until Yui motioned for him to keep going before activating his Omni-tool using the intercom system, "Yeaa but I got more guts than you apparently. Aint that easy to scare me." Laughter floated back, "Don't say I didn't warn you."

Sheldon grinned as he got the door open and then began to panic a little and hurriedly shut the door before it opened any further. "Shaped charge. They didn't have time for more than a wire trigger, but we can't open the door from this side." Laughter came back over the intercom, "Told you. You're dealing with the great Sark Baralk!" He paused and Yui looked amused, "Never heard of you. You another Batarian? Cause if you are that would explain it all, you Batarians are a dime a dozen." Silence answered him for a few seconds, "I am the most powerful pirate you'll ever meet. Who are you to think you're so important?" Yui grinned at that, "Names Hei Yui. If you aint heard of me don't worry, it just means you're small time." Sark laughed at that, "If you haven't heard of me it's because I leave no survivors small fry." Yui just shook his head bemused. He cut off the audio, "He's just buying time for something. Squishy I want you to head down to engineering, get things set to cut the life support. In fact just cut all power." Yui activated his com to the ship, "Hey Turian. Get your ass out and meet up with Squishy on his way down to engineering, I want you to give him some cover while he works. I don't think there's anyone left alive down that way but can't be too careful." He shut off his com as Sheldon nodded and moved out. "Right the rest of you, I'm going to keep him talking, the rest of you get ready if they try to make a break for it. Oh and get your helmets on, breathings going to get hard in here sooner rather than later." Yui switched back to the intercoms, "So small fry what's your exit plan? I hope you weren't planning on using that shitty ship that you came in on, I already blew it up." Sark scoffed, "Like I care. I'll just use yours once I kill you." Yui grunted, "Like you could. You don't have the quad kid, better than you're two bit ass has tried." The team took cover half way down the hall to the cockpit as Yui kept talking to Sark. "We'll see. We'll see." Yui grimaced, the guy sounded like something out of a human vid. Whatever. He sat back and waited silently, and it wasn't long before the lights went out and the air stopped moving as life support turned off. Yui hefted his shotgun, any moment now…

The doors opened revealing three men, the one in the middle holding a grenade launcher, who Yui assumed was Sark. Sark lifted his launcher and let fly with it, grenades began going off along the hall way, one exploding at Yui's feet. Yui stumbled back from it with blood splattering off him. Scarlet threw a singularity over them lifting all three in the air and held them there. "Damn it, I wasn't expecting grenades, we got to move out of the hallway now!" Scarlet gritted her teeth, "I can't move and hold them there at the same time." Yui just scowled and grabbed her, slinging her over his should like a sack so she could keep an eye on what she was doing, when his coms activated and Sheldons voice came over it, "Guys I just a remote signal from the ship, we got company coming." Yui scowl deepened, "Damn it, right everyone we're getting the hell outta here NOW! Back to the ship move move!" Scarlet finally couldn't hold them any longer and let the three men fall, Scooge took pot shots that sent the pirates scrambling for cover and Yui tossed a grenade back make them think twice about following. The door to the cockpit shut and locked in answer, apparently they decided that it was easier to let the re-enforcement deal with them. They ran back to the ship where Gogzurah and Sheldon were already getting the ship set to move out. Yui threw himself into his gun station and activated it. "What are we looking at?" Sheldons fingers danced across the console as he brought up the info, "Looks like a cruiser and a couple of frigates. Nothing too big, but we're a stealth ship. We can't take them in a slugging match." Yui frowned, "Fine but if we're leaving, lets leave them with something to remember us by." He turned his gun on the cockpit of the freighter and fired, blowing it away. He watched as a lifeless body floated out of where the hallway used to be along side a figure that triggered a distress signal in his armor along with some basic boosters to move him towards the ships. Yui glowered at the enhanced video feed before turning to Gogzurah, "Turian, hit him." Gogzurah blinked, "What?" Yui growled, "With the ship. Hit him with the ship, and then lets get the hell out of here." The Turian shrugged and gunned the engines aiming for the tiny figure that had cleared the wreckage, rammed it, and kept going. Sheldon engaged the stealth drives and Gogzurah sent them into evasive maneuvers as an added precaution until they reached the edge of the system and jumped into FTL. As they entered FTL Yui cracked open a beer and sat back with a sigh, "Well that was a waste of fucking time" and drank.


	5. Chapter Four: Thirteen

Chapter Four: Thirteen

Yui grunted as there was a wet popping sound and a clatter of metal on metal when the auto-doc pulled out another bullet. He glanced at the Sheldon who was monitoring the machine as it worked, "How many is it now?" "Forty three. Have you ever thought of not getting shot when you open doors into obvious traps?" Yui just glowered at him, "How many are left?" Sheldon pulled up the scans, "This is the last one. It's a deep one though." Yui didn't care. He had survived worse, a few bullets and a little shrapnel wouldn't kill him. When the last piece was pulled out he pulled himself to his feet and pulled him armor back on over his scared body before heading out to find Scarlet.

He found her in the communication room tapping her foot impatiently waiting for a call, "Hey. We know our next move?" Scarlet shook her head, "The council said they wanted a word, but seem to have now found something more important to do. I'm waiting for them to accept the FTL link." Yui nodded and settled in next to her. "So what did you do before the whole Citadel thing?" She glanced at him before turning back to the FTL terminal, "Well-" she stopped short of answering when the light on the terminal blinked and a holographic Turian appeared before them. "Councilor." Scarlet stiffened and came to attention, "Specter Scarlet." He glanced at Yui, "There a reason that thing is here?" his voice dripped with contempt. Yui glowered, "Because this "Thing" is the team expert on pirates, and has more combat experience than the entire rest of the crew combined. I insist on having a voice in where we go next." The Turian councilors eyes narrowed and Scarlet stepped forward, "Councilor I want Yui to stay for this. He is our expert and might be able to provide some insight to the meeting." The Turian councilor glared at Yui but didn't argue. Ha. "Well I don't think he can provide any real info here. We've got a tip about a rouge STG agent we want removed that's on a ship graveyard. We don't know what he's doing but we want you to go there and hunt him down. While we would like you to capture him, he is to be considered extremely dangerous so kill him if you have to. We're sending you the coordinates now." With that the Council member cut the feed. Yui glanced at Scarlet, "Well looks like we have some hunting to do. Salarian too, this should be fun." Scarlet just nodded and went to tell Gogzurah where they were going and to brief the rest of the team. Yui went back to his room and grabbed a couple new packs of beer before heading to his now cluttered gunnery station.

As it turned out they weren't very far from the wreaking yard their target was at so it only took an hour or so for them to arrive. They emerged from FTL and scanned the star system they were in checking for ships. When they found none they moved to a planet whose atmosphere was full of processing plants and orbital construction yards meant to repurpose the scrape that covered the planet. They detected no real security, nothing more than the point defenses the orbital structures used to fend off the pirate raids. The ezo cores and all electronic equipment was stripped from the wrecks that ended up here though so raids were rare, doubly so since anyone could land on the planet and salvage nearly anything they wanted from the world anyway. They descended and landed among the scrap and left the ship sitting with Gogzurah keeping an eye on it. They moved through the corridors of scrap and trash going to the last known coordinates of the rouge STG member. They didn't get too far before Yui motioned for the team to stop, "We're being watched. Varren if I'm not mistaken. A fair sized pack of them." As if to answer his question growls emerged from the shadows around him and a pack of a dozen or so Varren advanced on them. A grin spread across Yuis' face, "I've gotta idea." He moved a head of the group and studied the Varren in front of him till he picked out the alpha before roaring a challenge and charging him. The others just stared after him not understanding what was going on when he collided with the Varren and slammed his head into the alphas' sending flopping limply to the ground. The other Varren scrambled away from them as Yui lifted the alpha into the air and roared glaring at the retreating pack. Sheldon shook his head, "I can't believe that worked." Yui grinned at Sheldon, "Yea well how else do you think we capture Varren?" he lowered the Varren and began jogging back to the ship. Scarlet frowned, "Where are you going with that?" Yui's grin widened, "I'm just going to lock it up in a spare room on the ship. I always wanted a pet." She just shook her head but didn't argue.

An hour later they entered to the location the council had supplied them to look for the rouge STG member and found a dead Krogan sitting in the dust of an open area. They cautiously moved forward and examined the corpse, Scooge suddenly grinned, "This is a crime scene! This is my expertise, no one touch ANYTHING!" With that he began to scour the area around the body, lifting up pieces of scrap and muttering to himself as he did it. Yui stepped closer and knelt down next to the Krogan and mentally sighed, he knew this Krogan. He hadn't heard from him in nearly three hundred years but he had never removed the clan markings that adorned his armor. Scooge suddenly step forward looking proud, "This man…" he paused standing over the body to pull out a pair of what humans called aviator sun glasses and put them on, "…was shot!" Everyone but Yui just stared at him, Yui had leaned forward and was studying the wound intently, the blood was still fairly fresh so this didn't happen too long ago and wound itself was familiar, where had he seen a wound like…. His eyes widened in realization, "SNIPER! Everyone find cover!" As he turned his head to yell this there was a hiss and a chunk of a rock behind him where his head had been exploded. The team scrambled to find cover, any cover, and bunkered down. "Any one see where that came from?" Scooge's eyes glittered, "I saw the light reflect off a scope over-" A second shot slammed into Sheldon's shields from a new angle, the shields managed to barely redirect the shot enough to stop it from hitting him but still failed. Sheldon scrambled for new cover and Scarlet spotted a shuttle with its hull still intact, "Over here the shuttle!" and dashed for the cover it presented. The team followed behind her, there was another hiss of a sniper bullet and Yui's brow plate exploded into blood and bits of bone like scale. He roared in pain and stumbled into the shuttle where the rest of the team forced the doors shut after him.

Yui glowered as he wiped the blood out of his eyes, and waited for his natural regeneration to stop the bleeding, "Why in the hell did he shoot at us? We were just there, what in the hell was he thinking?" The others just shrugged and settled in around the shuttle. Yui glanced around, "So we have a sniper tanking pot shots at us with shredder rounds" he tapped below the furrow the round had dug in his brow plate, "and none of us have an effect range past, what sixty meters?" They all nodded. Yui shrugged, "Well I got nothing but charge and hope one of us can kill him. Except we don't even know where he actually is." Sheldon frowned, "Maybe we should try and talk to him?" Yui considered it, "Yeah sure what the hell. Can't hurt. Hey Scooge take off your shirt." Scooge blinked at him, he was wearing an outfit he had seen in a human vid that he liked, a white button down shirt, dress pants, and nice shoes along with his sun glasses. "Why?" Yui snorted, "Something I saw in a holo vid once. White flag, sign of peace and shit. Just take it off and give it to me." While Scooge took off his shirt Yui ripped a metal pipe off one of the walls, he took the shirt and tied it to the pipe. He opened the doors slightly and looked at Sheldon, "Can you get a message to him?" Sheldon nodded and pulled up his Omni-tool and set it to broadcast on all frequencies, "I am Sheldon, Ex-STG like you. Me and my friends don't want to fight you, we just want to talk. There's no need for anyone to die here." As he sent the message Yui poked the makeshift flag out and waved it. A bullet hissed past and snapped into the flag and barely missed Yui's head when it punched through the door behind the flag, "SHIT!" Yui hurriedly scrambled into the personnel section of the shuttle that was thicker than the area by the doors. "Looks like he switched to armor piercing rounds. Lovely." A voice hissed through the coms, "You are all going to die here." They glanced at one another, "Well this sucks. Now what?" Yui handed Scooge his shirt back. Scooge stared at for a second then looked back at Yui, "You're buying me a new."

They sat around for awhile longer till Scarlet started to study the shuttle they were in, "Hmmmm….. I have an idea. Sheldon you think you can find where this guy is hiding?" The others glanced at one another and shrugged, no one else had any ideas. "Sure." Sheldon deployed his combat drone, took manual control of it, and sent the drone off to search for the Ex-STG. After about half an hour of searching Sheldon found him. More specifically he found the barrel of the gun for the few seconds before he shot the drone. Sheldon marked the location for her and Scarlet nodded, "Good. Now everyone find something to hold onto. This is going to be a bumpy ride." Most of the team strapped themselves into the flight crews safty harnesses with the exception of Yui who couldn't fit. He shrugged and held onto a pipe on the wall. Scarlet closed her eyes and began to glow with biotic power. She began to sweat and the entire ship began to shake as it lifted into the air. With a scream of effort she hurled the entire shuttle towards where they found the Salarian. When they landed Scarlet looked around the room and found herself staring at an upside down Krogan where Sheldon used to be. She blinked as Yui groaned and shifted himself off the seat revealing a now dazed Sheldon from under him. They pushed themselves to their feet slowly and then moved to the door, "Right lets go see where we ended-" Before he finished his sentence a set of sniper shots punched through the top of the shuttle and sparked off the floor where they had planned on walking. They hadn't made that far yet because of Yui having bounced around the ship and knocking the whole team around as well. He scowled and charged to the doors of the shuttle and tore them open and scrambled to the roof to find himself staring at nothing. He pulled himself up and glanced around the ship and jerked as a sniper shell slammed into his chest, sending him stumbling off the shuttles roof to slam into the ground with an a rush of air leaving his lungs. "In" he groaned to Scooge and Scarlet who had followed him out, "get back in the ship." They turned and went back in as Yui hauled himself to his feet and back into the shuttle.

"Right I'm damn tired of his fuckin bullshit. Call the fuckin Turian and tell him to get the Defiant over here. I am not dealing with this any longer than I have to." Sheldon pulled up the coms while Yui propped himself up next the door and pulled out the sniper shell lodged in the twisted metal of his chest plate. That was going to leave a mark. They sat for about another minute with the occasional sniper shot punching through the walls of the shuttle from different angles before the roar of the ships engines went over head to settle across the way from them. "Right," Yui grunted "on three. One. Two. THREE!" He charged out of the shuttle on three with the rest of the team close behind him, and took a third shot on the way across sending sparks flying as it scrapped along the back of his armor, ripping out a chunk from it. They charged up the landing ramp of the ship and went straight to the cockpit, "Sheldon get me that bastards location. I've got a mother fuckin present for that rotten pyjack." Sheldon patched in the last known location of the Salarian to the targeting system, and Yui brought up the missile launcher and began to shell the location around it. After the fourth shot he glanced at Sheldon, "Send that drone of yours out Salarian. See if there's anything left of his body for us to find." He nodded and moved back to the loading ramp and sent his drone down it and into the shelled area. After awhile of searching he found a pool of blood and bits of bone splattered on and around a shuttle. A trail left there moving to the north before it petered into nothing. Yui scoffed, "No Salarian could survive that much blood loss. Send it back to take a picture of the pool. That'll be our proof that we killed him." Sheldon nodded and sent the drone to get the picture. Once they had it Yui groaned and allowed himself to fully relax into the chair at his station. "Get us the hell out of here, I'm tired of this place already." And now it was final too. With the death of Hei Thull, near nine hundred years old and the only friend Yui had had, all that remained of clan Hei was him and his two Asari daughters. He was going to miss the old Krogan. He had taught him all he needed to know about being clan chief and his peoples past. Sheldon pulled him out of his musings of the past with a groan, "What is it Squishy?" Sheldon just shook his head, "I caught it on its way out. A Salarian stealth ship. He's still alive."


	6. Chapter Five: R and R

Chapter Five: R and R

Yui checked on his brow plate when he got back to the ship. There was about an inch long gap in it now from the bullet. Nothing too serious, it wasn't even too deep, but it was going to be another scar to add to his collection. He was going to have to start wearing a helmet too if they were going to go sniper hunting again. Speaking of which… Yui went searching for Scarlet and found her in the infirmary with a damp cloth covering her eyes. "What's your problem?" She groaned at his voice, "Not so loud. My head feels like it's going to split open." Yui smiled a bit at that, "Ah so you did over do it with that stunt with the shuttle. It's what you deserve, you shoulda just let us call the ship and get it over with." Scarlet just groaned in answer. Yui grinned and went through the infirmary looking for everything he needed. Once he had it he mixed the drink together and walked over to Scarlet, "Here drink this. You'll feel better once you do." She lift the corner of the cloth to look at what he was holding before sitting up with a moan. She took the drink and sipped it, and nearly gagged. "What is this stuff?" Yui just grunted, "Just drink it. Hold your nose if you need to just get it down. Trust me it works, I've done this before." She glowered at the drink before taking a deep breath and chugging the whole thing down while holding her nose. Once it was all gone she gasped and went over the sink in the infirmary and washed the taste out her mouth. She straightened up wiping her mouth, "I thought you didn't have biotics." Yui nodded, "Yea but I've worked with a lot of Asari over the years. You aint the first to get a migraine by pushing herself too far." She nodded and paused, "You know I'm already feeling better. I no longer feel like the light is trying to burn my eyes out their sockets." Yui smiled at that, "Yeah the taste gets it kick started on that front. Its made to be fast acting so you'll be right as rain in a minute or so. So tell me, why in the hell did no one mention that the guy we were after was a sniper? I feel like it should have been right up front, 'He's a Salarian, ex-STG, oh and he can fuck you up from a thousand meters or more.' somethin like that." Scarlet shook her head and winced a bit at the motion. "You knew as much as me going in. Either way we gotta tell the council he got away." Yui's smiled widened at that, "Oooor we could not and instead tell them we hit his ass with ship to ship missiles and show them the picture of the blood and leave it at that. We still get paid for the side job then." He paused here before continuing suspiciously, "We were getting paid for that right?" Scarlet nodded, "Yea we're getting about two thousand each for it." Yui scowled, "Should have asked for more. A lot more." Scarlet shrugged, "Nothing we can do now. That was what I set up for all our pay for side missions like that." Yui just shook his head, "Whatever. What's next anyway?" Scarlet stretched, "We're going back to the Citadel. We're going re-supply and everyone gets three days shore leave. Try not to get arrested." Yui laughed at that, "Have I told you how I got arrested last over there? The charges ended up being drunk and disorderly, assault, assault on an officer, sexual harassment, and public nudity….."

Two days later they arrived at the Citadel and as the team filed out Yui emerged with a create. The other glanced at each other seeing it but no one asked what he had in it. Yui took his create to the seedy underbelly of the Citadel and sold the salvaged weapons in it at parts price, or in the case of the whole ones, at cost. They were free for him after all. He didn't have too much, didn't have time to do a full body search but he still made a decent amount of creds off them. It helped that the dealer he sold them to was terrified of him. Now that he had some spending money he went and found the small apartment Scarlet had requisitioned for him to use during leave. It wasn't much but it would do. He moved some of his booze stock off the ship and into his apartment before settling in and surfing the extranet till he got bored and went to bed. The next day he did a bit of shopping for armor upgrades and grenades till he decided it had been late enough and he went and found a bar to drink at. After drinking "vodka", the human drink he had found online, for awhile he decided he had waited long enough and went to find a club. He went specifically for ones that didn't serve dextro, he saw no reason to get hassled by Turians today. As luck would have it he found an Asari club. He walked in and beamed about before heading to the bar and ordering his drink. He glanced at the Asari beside him and grinned, "Hey there beautiful. Can a lonely old Krogan buy you a drink?"

The next day he groaned a little as he sat up. His face hurt that morning and his body was sore. What in the hell had he been doing? A murmur from his side answered at least part of the question. He glanced beside him and found himself looking at the blue back of an Asari. He shift out of the bed and moved to leave the room and almost stepped on another two Asari that were intertwined on the floor. The hell were they… he paused when he recognized one of the two. It was Scarlet. Why in the hell was she here? He moved into the living room area of the two room apartment after he retrieved some clothes and settled in at the couch. The memories of the night before filtered back in and remembered that he had been hitting on some Asari and getting no where when Scarlet, who had had the same idea as him, sauntered into the bar. Once she was there the two of them worked together and managed to rope in a pair of young and egger Asari that were there together. After that it was all just fun. He slipped out and ordered a few breakfasts to go from a restaurant from down the street. Thus armed he came back to the apartment to find one of the three Asari blinking about confused as to where she was. "Mornin. Want some breakfast?"

Later Yui and Scarlet returned to the ship laughing, "Really you actually SAID that? To an ASARI? Are you insane?" Yui just laughed, "Yes I am, but at the time I was drunk off my ass so I wasn't exactly thinkin right. Seemed like a good idea at the time ya know?" She just shook her head, "Damn that was fun. We should do it again next time we dock here." Yui nodded at that grinning. He had always loved shore leave, but now it was time for them to get back to work. What was to come next would be the hard part.

Yui's Extranet Search history:

Naked Asari

Beer

Beerfest

Alcohol

Vodka

Wine

Holo vids

Free holo vids

Free shows

Free vids

What do you get an Asari for her birthday

Shipping to Omega

Shipping to ships

Hei Yui

Hei Yui bounties

Hei Yui outstanding warrants

Krogan Specters

Are there Krogan Specters

Naked Asari


	7. Intermission

Sorry about the extended break on the story, I've been busy with classes lately and haven't had much time for it. I will be uploading the next chapter today or tomorrow as I have the first half of it done. Thanks for your patience. - Ruven aka Lee

Ps: here, a short story from Yuis past for your reading pleasure before I post the main story

Yui scowled at her as she fiddled with his suit. "It's fine woman, leave it alone!" Blue eyes glared up at him in response, "This is an important meeting, and I will not have you screw it up like the last one we went to." Yui laughed, "I thought it went fine. Just cause the Blue Suns are so sensitive to my stories…." "SENSITIVE! You admitted that we highjack their convoys on a regular basis! You even described in detail what you did to their men to get them to give you info on other convoys!" Yui chuckled, "Ya but it certainly spiced up an other wise boring party. We don't need the Blue Sun anyway, we'll be getting a better fence today and we made it clear that not even the Blue Suns can defend themselves against us. That's a good message right there." The Asari shook her head, "Fine but you're still my second in command, and I expect you to act like it this time. We can't afford for this to go wrong, if it does then the Blue Sun will be the least of our problems."

She stepped back and gave him another look over before nodding. "Right that'll do fine." Yui grunted and loosed the neck of the suit again. "Why can't I wear my armor again? I got it all polished up and everything already, I think its plenty formal." She shook her head, "No." Yui rolled his eyes, "Fine but I had better get something out of all this." Natalya shifted in the skin tight dress she wore that made her blood red tattoos pop out and smiled as she turned t words the door giving Yui a good look at his favorite assets of hers, "Play your cards right and we both get paid in a big way." Yui paused for a second, "Oh ya? Well I was thinkin you could reward me for my good behavior with some….. bad behavior." He leered down at her black dress as she moved to the door of the rented two bed room apartment they shared.

She paused and gave him a glance over her shoulder, "Well that depends on if you can act as good as you look." She opened the door leaving him mildly shocked as she did. That was a first, she had never said yes before. A grinned spread across his face as he moved to the door and double checked his sidearm he kept under his jacket, tonight be more fun than he thought it would be. He wiped the smile off his face as he walked out and scowled security team waiting for them, "You runts better be on your toes. Omega is a nasty place and I'm wearing a good suit tonight. If I gotta get it dirty it'll your fuckin heads. You hear me?" The team jumped at the growl in his voice and made a show of re-checking their equipment again. No one wanted to disappoint Yui. After all he wasn't kidding when he said it would be their heads he took. He nodded to the amused looking Natalya that they were ready to go. They couldn't delay any longer anyway. After all no one keeps Aria waiting.


	8. Chapter Six: Boom Part 1

Chapter Six: Boom Part 1

Bullets screamed past and snapped into the walls and ground around him. Yui took another pair shots with his shotgun before ducking back around the wall. A sniper shoot boomed out and he felt the bullet punch into his back through the wall. It didn't crack his armor so he ignored it and pulled out his Carnifix side arm. He came out of cover and opened fire on the nearest target, missing with this first shot and hitting the man in the arm and chest with the next two. Bullets sparked across his armor in the few moments he was out of cover and as he spun back into cover the eye piece of his helmet exploded into a web of cracks as a bullet slammed into it.

With a snarl of annoyance he ripped his helmet off and tossed it away, "Where the fuck is he?" Scarlet popped out of cover to throw a singularity out, "How the hell should I know? He ll get here when he gets here!" Yui just scowled and came out of cover to open up on the now helpless pirates Scarlet had lifted into the air. He could hear the ship coming from where he was and he shifted back into cover and moved farther down next to Scarlet, "When he gets here I'm going to tell him to open the cargo hatch. Once he does I want you to throw me in there." Scarlet blinked at him and the shrugged, "Hope you know what you're doing." Yui just grinned at popped up to take another shot at the pirates. He ducked as another sniper bullet cracked through the wall and hit his leg. It managed to get through the armor but it was his mechanical leg so he ignored it.

As Gogzurah brought the ship in low Yui hailed him and told him to open up the cargo bay. He obliged and Yui nodded to Scarlet. She glowed blue and lifted Yui into the air before hurling him into the open hatch. He slammed into the ceiling before coming down hard onto the deck. He sat there for a moment stunned before lifting himself up with a groan and moving to the cockpit. He had to get dampeners if he was going to have Scarlet keep doing that. Gogzurah glanced back at Yui when he got into the cockpit, "Whats your hurry I was going to land further back to get you guys out anyway. Scarlet said it was too hot to-" The Turian didn't finish his sentence before Yui, who had sat in his usual seat, let fly with the ships launcher and wiped the area in front of them out. The defensive wall the pirates had made to keep even Makos out didn't stand up well to the heavy ship to ship weapons Yui was using. Gogzurah slowly turned and gave a hard look at Yui who just stared back, "They broke my helmet. I liked that helmet." And then laughed. The Turian just chuckled and went back to the controls to bring the ship down for a landing.

Yui moved out of the ship and glanced at the smoke and dust filling the air in front of him, "You guys check for survivors yet?" Scarlet just shook her head, "We thought we would wait for our tank before going in." He just grunted and put the new helmet he had gotten out of the armory on. "Well lets get it over with then." As he moved to the ruins of the wall the rest of the team fell in behind him. He paused at the exit of the hole and glanced around looking for any obvious movement in rubble and felt the pressure on his back as both Scarlet and Sheldon pressed themselves into his back like he was the missing wall. "Sheldon, Gogzurah, go check to make sure they're all dead. Keep alert, I don't want to have to come back and save your asses. Scarlet, Scooge you're with me. Lets see whats inside."

As they shifted into the pirates fort Yui took point, Scarlet followed on his heels, and Scooge took up the rear. A volley of small arms fire pinged off Yui's armor when they reached the halfway point of the hall and he chuckled at them. It wasn't even modded fire, he ignored it like it was so much rain and continued his advance. Scarlet threw a singularity over his shoulder and lifted part of the pirates team into the air and sent the others scurrying for cover as Scooge opened up with his duel heavy pistols from the back. Yui grinned as the gun fire went past him and lifted his old Scimitar shotgun to add to the suppressive fire. They shifted down the hall as Scooge took out the men floating in the singularity as Yui took more gun fire from the pirates hiding around the corner. As Yui reached the corner he slammed the first pirate he met into the wall deforming his light armor and shattering his bones with the force of the blow. Scarlet sent a wave of blue energy down the hall that lifted the rest of the pirates up off the ground just to be slammed into another wall farther down. She drew her pistol and ended them with a series of quick shots to the head. With a nod they continued down one of the halls clearing rooms one by one and finding no one else. It seemed that most of them had been at the defenses out front. Apparently the team had made more of an impression on the pirates than they thought.

They were clearing the last room when Sheldon and Gogzurah joined them in the base. Sheldon looked bored as walked through the door, "Nothing but the dead. Maybe you could leave some fun for the rest of us next time." Scooge suddenly struck a pose, "Hey but using those missiles made it," he drew out a pair of aviators and put them on, "quite the light show. YEEAAAAA!" The others just stared at him as he held his pose and stared off into a corner of the room. Yui just shook his head and pushed him out of the way to get out the door, "Drell you make no damn sense. Shut the fuck up and follow me. I saw a server room back here and Sheldon I want you to see what you can find on it." They sat around and watched Sheldon work on the computers for a few minutes while Scooge drank from a thermos he always seemed to carry with him. Yui watched him for a bit before curiosity finally got the better of him, "What are you drinking? Water? Soda? If it's booze then you better damn well share." Scooge just pointed to it, "Coffee" before going back to drinking. Yui decided he didn't want to know.

Sheldon stepped back and nodded to them, "There was too much data for my Omni-tool to hold so I uploaded it to the ship and forwarded a copy to the council. We can re-view it later, for now we should leave before their friends show up." Yui nodded, "Ya that would probably be a good idea. I'm pretty sure this was one of Sarks bases so I wouldn't be surprised if they'll come looking to see why they went dark before too long. These kinda bases are meant to send regular updates." The team moved out of the base and were gone from the system before an hour had passed. All that was left was to read the new info. And Yui had a sinking feeling that where ever this info leads them was going to be a real bitch.


	9. Chapter Seven: Boom Part 2

**Chapter Seven: Boom Part 2**

Yui tossed the shatter remnants of a Loki mech into a corner of the hold with a dissatisfied growl. The team was on their way to the Krogan DMZ where Long John was gathering a fleet of his allies and mercenaries. They didn't know why, there was no info on the reason for the gathering, but they had decided they didn't need to know to know to know it was nothing good. They did have info on the pirates that were gathering and him and Scarlet had been discussing what Yui knew about them when the council had called in to give them permission to scout the fleet for a real threat assessment. Only thing was the last pirate fleet on the list was one he knew far too well. He had double checked the ships armaments after reading the list, and was as underwhelmed by them as he was the first time. A pair of guardians lasers meant for anti-fighter work more than real combat. Their biggest gun was the torpedo launcher, which only carried ten and was meant for quick strikes surgical strikes. If they were caught then it would be a slugging match not a surgical strike, and he knew that they couldn't even take on single of these fleets by themselves. Whats more SHE would be there. She would never leave that much of her fleet under the command of someone else. That put her personal ship there too which made the mission just that much more dangerous. He knew that they had no choice but to go and check it out, so he had decided to keep this tidbit of info to himself. No need to worry these guys too much. Besides with the stealth systems they should be in and out without anyone being the wiser. What could go wrong?

As they entered into the system Yui shifted into his seat and studied his weapons systems, checking and re checking his station as he waited for them to get into range of the target. It was a bit far out from Tuchanka itself so it would be a couple hours longer. The others began to fidget restlessly as he cleared old beer cans off the console as well. "Keep on your toes, we need to get the stealth systems up and running as soon as we can. If we're caught we're dead. And my ancestors would never forgive me if I got killed in a shitty little Salarian ship by some two bit pirate gone merc. Just wouldn't be right for a Krogan to die like that." A brief glance went around before the team went back to their own stations. He was right after all, any fight would be paramount to suicide here. When they neared the pirate rendezvous Sheldon activated their stealth system and they began to take a look around. They couldn't use active radar, but the lack of regular traffic in system made the pirates willing to leave their own radar up and running so they had plenty of blips anyway. Sheldon was counting quietly as they carefully moved closer trying to get an exact count of the ships when suddenly all hell broke loose across the consoles as warnings went off everywhere.

Yui's voice boomed through cockpit,"THAT HAD BETTER NOT BE WHAT I THINK IT IS SQUISHY." Gogzurah's and Sheldon's hands danced across their consoles as the ship suddenly pitched to the side and missile locks began to light up on the electronics system as the fleet began waking to their presence. Yui prepared his launcher for use and braced himself as they flipped around and punched it for the other side of the system. "We need to get out of here NOW." Gogzurah growled out, "Working on it." and the ship shook as they were clipped by a shot. As the ship did a barrel roll and Sheldon pulled up the active radar and snarled, "Damn it another fleet just entered system on our ass." Gogzurah growled, "Looks like we're gonna have to make a jump into FTL. I'm charging it up now, you guys better pray to the spirits that we don't hit anything on the way." Yui chuckled, "Ya well at least we won't feel it if we do." The ship shuttered as another couple of shots hit the hull and the notification system informed Gogzurah of the FTL coming online. "We've got a couple of hull breaches, we need to get out of here NOW." Gogzurah just grunted and activated the FTL, and they were away.

Yui and the others sat back with a sigh as they moved out of the system. "So" Scarlet began, " we got a destination?" Gogzurah nodded, "There was a minor planet not too far from Tuchanka. Big enough for us to hide out on and send a message off the council anyway." Scarlet nodded, "Sheldon, what kinda damage we take?" The Salarian ran a scan of the ships hull, "We've got some minor hull damage to the crew quarters, looks like the cargo bay sealed itself because of atmospheric venting, and-" The doors to the cockpit hissed open and a womans voice boomed out, "No sudden moves or you're all dead!" As the others frozen Sheldon continued calmly, "-those last couple torpedo hits were actually boarding craft." The crew listened to the sounds of movement as the boarding team took up positions around the cockpit to cover the stations, and a now familiar voice snarled, "Get the pilot to turn us around. Johnson's going to want to question them. Now unless everyone wants to die here and now, you're all going to keep your hands where we can see them, and away from those consoles. If no one plays the hero, you all get to live just that much longer." A grown emerged from the torpedo console and a heavy thump was heard as Yui banged his head against the wall. "Of COURSE it had to be YOU that boarded us. If it wasn't then my day might not have gone to COMPLETE shit." Foot steps walked over behind him as one of the pirates moved closer to him, "Is that who I think it is?" Yui straightened up and spun his chair around to look at the Asari whose face he had never wanted to see again. "Hello Natalya. Long time no see."

The blue alien laughed as she leveled an old battle scared claymore at Yui's head, "Well well, I wasn't expecting to have a prize like you drop into my lap. What rock have you been hiding under all this time?" Yui shrugged, "Wasn't hiding. Just haven't been in your territory is all. Hows the kids?" She smiled, "Why not take a look for yourself?" She nodded over to a couple of the boarders, who removed their helmets. One was covering Scarlet with a Scimitar shotgun, and the other stood behind her mother with a machine pistol at the ready. "Deras, Merix! Its been far too long girls. How have you been? Giving your mother trouble I hope." Neither of them said a word as Natalya scowled at him, "What you can't talk to good old dad now? After all the letters and presents I sent you?" This brought a smile to Natalyas face again, "You mean all that useless shit you sent were meant to be presents? I just assumed you were trying to annoy us, so I've been shooting them out of the air locks." Yui grew still and watched his daughters reactions to this statement. Merix was as calm as she always was, barely a flickering glance at him to give away her feelings about it. Deras on the other hand looked uncomfortable and began shifting from foot to foot. So it wasn't their idea eh, he mused. His eyes went back to Natalya and he felt an anger begin bubbling up in his chest. What right did she have? "Well at least you got my mail." Natalyas grin spread wide as she leaned forward, "You mean the ones where you denied being their father? Called them such horrible names? Do you think they like that?" Yui became completely still. Natalya laughed, "That's right sweety. They got those messages alright."

He was quiet as he stared at her before began the sentence murmuring into the now silent room and growing in strength till filling it with an echoing boom, "You lied to them. You made up new letters didn't you. Wrote them to turn the kids on me. MY kids. YOU tried to make MY kids HATE ME. YOU LIED TO THEM AND HURT THEM JUST TO GET BACK AT ME YOU STUPID FUCKING BITCH. FUCK YOU AND FUCK ALL OF THIS!" His eyesight had gone blood red as went and faster than anyone expected he was up and his foot was lashing out to slam into Natalyas just, sending her tumbling back to come to a stop next to Deras where she shot to her feet and leveled the claymore at him again. The rest of the boarding team glanced around at Yui as he came to the end of the rant, and the team took that as an oportunity to act. Sheldon suddenly dove out of his chair, twisting as he went to put a pair of shots into the pirate covering hims chest. Gogzurah grabbed the arms and gun Asari that was up with him and used them to lever her face first into the console before spinning out his Kestler pistol and putting a round through he skull. Scooge didn't even turn around as he spun his dual pistol out of their holsters to put a pair of rounds into the pirate with him, one through the heart and the other through the head. Scarlet turned around to see the last Merix frozen for a split second before she lifted her gun to shoot her, and spotted Natalya leveling a shot at Yuis head. She decided to take care of them both and used a surge of biotic power to hurl Merix back at her mother. Deras was torn with indecision as she watched Yui try to charge across the room before Natalya got her shot off and stood in the path of her sisters flight to hit their mother, and was caught in between the two of them when Scarlets biotic throw got to her. The three of them shot across the room to slam into the wall, Natalyas shot going wide and hitting the ceiling in the process. She snarled in anger as she shoved the dazed and unconscious children off her, she pushed herself to her feet in time to come face to face with the enraged Yui. With a snarl he tore the gun from her hands with one hand and slammed his fist into her head with the other. She stumbled to the side and lifted her hands to defend herself until Yui slammed the butt of the gun into her guts. He began to beat her over and over with the claymore, the claymore she had stolen from him so long ago, and her bone cracked and shattered under the abuse. Finally when she was nothing more than a broken whimpering rag doll he grabbed her by the throat lifted her into the air and tore head from her shoulders with a triumphant roar. He let the head fall to the ground and stood there breathing heavily as he stared down at the broken and bloody remains of his ex-wife.

After a few time of silence where everyone stared at him, a whimpering from beside him drew Yui out of his trance. Merix pulled Deras close to her and stared at Yui, terrified of the sight before her. He turned and moved towards her and paused when she whimpered louder and tried to back away farther into the wall, dragging her sister with her. He sighed and squatted in front of her and silently began to extract Deras from Merix, he could see blood running down from the side of her head and it worried him. Merix panicked as he tried to do it and grabbed a fallen SMG and pointed it at him. He paused then went back to what he was doing. The gun began to shake and feel from her lifeless hand before she finally surrendered her sister to Yui. He lifted Deras in his arms and stood up, "Follow me. We're going to the medical bay." He glanced at the team before for leaving the cockpit and monotoned, "Don't bother us for awhile unless it's important" before shifted out the door and heading to the med bay. Merix sat there motionless for a few seconds as Scarlet watched her and the rest of the team, except Gogzurah who was working on dropping them out of FTL, began moving bodies out of the way. Finally she pushed herself to her feet and silently followed Yui out.

Yui careful set Deras on the auto-docs table and used it to begin scanning her head. He studied the readings as the doors hissed shut behind him and Merix shifted around him to sit on the far side of the room. She watched him in silence, and his face grew dark as the information came in. Finally he sighed "I'm sorry. About you havin to watch that. She didn't leave me much choice in killing her, but I let my anger get the better of me and..." he trailed off into silence. There was a beep from the monitor that caught his attention and he just stared at what he already knew. He quietly applied medi-gel to her head to prevent the damage from getting worse and careful placed her on a bed. They couldn't do anything help her on this ship. He turned to Merix with a sigh, "Your turn. Just sit on the table and the auto-doc wi-" The med bay was filled with a screech from down the hall and an explosion rocked the ship. Warning lights blared across the ship and Yui was on his feet in an instant striding across the room to lift Deras out of the bed, "I don't know what that was but it sure as hell wasn't good and those are the evacuation warnings. We're going to the escape pods, move it!" Merix scrambled in his wake as he shifted down the hall, pausing at a room to open the door. The Varren inside was sitting in a corner whimpering, and ran over to Yui when he saw him. With a grunt Yui shoved the animal ahead of him to the escape pods and put Deras into a seat. "Merix get your sister into the harness. I've gotta take care of something." As the Asari took care of her sister he moved down the hall and set a 10 second timer for the system to launch all the escape pods on his level. He hauled himself into the pod to find Merix finishing up her own harness, and strapped himself into a pilots seat at the front of the pod. He gave a sharp whistle to the Varren which jumped into his lap obediently. He held on tight as the escape pods doors shut tight and the pod shuttered as they were launched from the ship.

Yui tapped into the control system and checked to see where the nearest planet was and was surprised to see that they had been very close to one already. He couldn't tell what planet it was but it was going to be the one they landed on. The pod shuttered again as something big went up behind them, and a quick check on the console screen showed that it had been ship itself going up. The system detected multiple other emergency beacons around them, more than the ones he had launched. The cockpit must have launched their pods too, which meant the crew was still alive. Or at least they currently were he thought as a pair of beacons went out as the ship that had probably been the one to take out the ship began picking off pods. He sat back and sighed. Nothing they could do now but wait and see if they would make it to the planet alive. If they can do that then everything that comes after would be easy in comparison. So, he mused silently, heres to hoping it has air. And nothing waiting to eat them.


	10. Chapter Eight: Dust and Blood

**Chapter Eight: Dust and Blood**

The pod neared the planet's atmosphere and the console let out a warning as it did. Yui grunted and glanced back, "We're getting ready to enter, brace for it." He began to turn back and then paused and took a look at Deras. She sat limply in her seat while Merix began to check her own straps across the pod. With a sigh, and knowing he was going to regret this, he unhooked himself and set the Varren from his lap in his seat. He took the straps and secured the complaining animal in place before shifting back into the main pod to check Merix over. He had just finished re-attaching her helmet to the rest of her suit when the pod gave a shudder before bucking as they hit the upper atmosphere. Yui gripped the pods seats tight as the pods floor began dancing beneath his feet. It leveled out enough for him to pull himself into a seat and latch onto the crash bars with a death grip. He hadn't come this far just to die because he wasn't wearing a damn belt. The pod shuttered again as they hit the stratosphere and then calmed a bit as the mass effect fields kicked in. "Here we go!" Yui boomed, "Get ready for the fun part!" They hit the troposphere with a massive shutter before the fields kicked it into high gear as they screamed through the air. There was a moment of complete calm where Yui took a deep breath before there was a massive boom as they hit the ground. It was all Yui could do to hold on as the pod bucked and was slammed around as they skipped across the ground. There was a moment of weightlessness before they hit something hard and Yui was nearly torn from his seat. The pod groaned and acidic smoke came from a panel that hid part of the inertia dampener as the pod slid to a stop with a grinding noise. Yui let out a whoop of exhilaration as the adrenaline of the landing really hit him. They were alive!

Yui sat back laughing for a few seconds before he pulled himself to his feet and detached both the Varren and Deras from their seats. Merix detached herself too and opened the door to reveal old ruins and sprawling salt flats. As Yui stepped out to check the area and the Varren charged out of the pod like a his head was on fire and his ass was catch, he took a deep breath and cast about. A grin spread across his face and he threw back his head laughing, and threw his fist at the sky above, "WE'RE ALIVE YOU MOTHER FUCKERS! YOU CAN SHOOT US, BLOW UP OUR SHIP, AND CRASH LAND US, BUT YOU CAN'T FUCKIN KILL US!" his laughter became almost hysterical as he sat down hard in the dirt. Finally he caught his breath and pushed himself back to his feet. He glanced back at his daughters to find Merix watching him with a small smile. "Great to know you're in such a good mood!" Yui and Merix jumped and turned to find Scarlet smiling at them. Yui chuckled, "How in the hell did you get to the ground before us? And find us so fast?" Scarlets smile widened, "Glad to see me? We launched just before you did, made for the pods as soon as we came out of FTL to find ourselves staring down the barrel of Mass accelerator. No dodging it, and they were shooting at something before we got there. We just had the bad luck of catching the shot." Yui just shook his head as Scarlet and the rest of the team closed in on them. "You didn't answer the second question." She nodded to the Turian pilot, "He knows how to fly more things than we thought he did. Just picked a pod, followed it, and got lucky that it was yours. After that it was a matter of following mad Krogan laughter."

He laughed again and began checking over his equipment. The armor was intact, shields working, combat knife, an emergency kit with a little food and water, medi-gel. He paused on the last item, the Claymore shotgun he had taken off Natalya. He pulled it out and glanced at the stock to find familiar scripting still carved into the butt. It was an old language that was only used by Shaman anymore. Few could speak it, fewer could read it, but his father had insisted that he be able to do both. Tradition, he had said. Every clan leader and their sons had to know it. He traced the lettering with a finger and muttered to himself in the old language, "With strength comes power. With power comes leadership. With leadership comes clan and responsibility. May your arms guard these things well." She had taken this gun when she had taken his leg. Now it was his once more. "What was that?" Yui jumped as he was pulled out the trance the lettering had put him in, "What?" She nodded to the gun, "You were muttering something and groping your gun. It was kinda creepy." Yui shifted the gun to his back, and busied himself looking around, "Nothing, just remembering something... important..." his voice trailed away as he cast about and got a good look around. "Fuck. What planet are we on?" The others glanced at each other, "Tuchanka. It was where we were going after Natalya had us turn around. Why?" There was a yipping sound as a Varren shaped blurred shot past them back into the escape pod. "Double fuck." The ground began to shake as a section of the sand began to shift and seemed to sink in on itself as Yui yanked his shotgun back out, "We landed in a mother fucking Thresher Maw nest!" Scarlets jaw dropped and the section of ground Yui had been watching erupted into a fountain of sand as the Maw hauled itself up and out.

Gun fire rippled out from Scooge almost instantly, and Sheldon followed not too far behind as everyone scrambled for cover. Except Yui. The world seemed to slow as he glanced back at the escape pod where Merix now was huddled over Deras staring in horror at the massive beast and cast about as the others fired their small arms at the Thresher Maw that towered over them. He turned back to the Maw and took a deep breath. Some days you just couldn't win, but those are the days you needed to at least make sure someone did. The world sped up again as he charged, letting out the bellowing wordless war cry of his clan. The Maw screeched at the tiny creature stormed towards it and spat a massive glob of acid at him as a sniper round punched into a soft spot on its armor, and drew the first blood. The shot went wide but still splattered Yui, leaving drops of sizzling acid to eat at his robotic leg. He ignored it and kept going, he had to get closer, if he just got a little bit closer... The Maw reared back as Yui got close and more bullets found their way under the segmented chitin, but they were nothing but annoying stings to the beast. But this little one was challenging it, charging like he was going to fight it in hand to hand. The Maw obliged him and tentacles lifted out of the ground to block his way, Yui growled, "NO YOU STUPID BASTARD OPEN YOUR DAMN MOUTH AND EAT ME! EAT ME DAMN IT!" The tentacles pulled back getting ready to smash the Krogan when suddenly he found himself in the air and flying before they had even touched him. He glanced down to find himself surrounded by a blue glow, and as he tumbled in the air he saw Scarlet shrouded in biotic power. She had heard him yelling and had under stood what he was thinking. He smiled to himself, they had always thought alike. It was why she let him lead in combat when she could have just done it herself. His tumble brought him back facing the Thresher Maw in time to slam into its nose.

He scrambled for purchase as he began to slide down, and the Maw made a sound of annoyance as it threw its head back tossing him up into the air. He landed at the top of its mouth and with a snarl slammed his feet into the bottom of the beasts jaw as he slid into its maw. He began to slide forward and its jaws began to descend on him to crush him before swallowing. With a roar he slammed his hands with the old shotgun into the top jaw and pushed back. The jaws slowed but kept closing, but Yui knew he had to keep the Maw busy. Had to keep it distracted with the others ran. He roared out in pure rage and the world before him went blood-red. The jaws stopped coming down and began to shake as they parted. Every muscle in his body strained against the beast, and the beast responded in kind, and closed just that much harder. They stood frozen, locked in a stalemate. The world before Yui's eyes turned darker and darker red till suddenly everything came into sharp relief and slowed to a crawl. He listened to his own breathing, watched as spittle and acid intermixed and dripped down his arms, leaving trails of melted metal behind. The words of his father whispered into his mind, With strength comes power. With power comes leadership. With leadership comes clan and responsibility. May your arms guard these things well. He remembered the first time he had been told that as a boy after his father had finished a challenge for the right to lead. He had said Yui's brother hadn't understood those words. That that was why he was dead and would never lead. Now Yui stood on death's door, staring down the mouth of hell itself, and he understood. To have power you needed to be strong. As he held the Maws jaws back he knew he had that. This strength gave him the power to protect his clan, his daughters. An image of Scarlet flashed through his mind, and brought a smile to his face. Her as well. His hearts beat loud in his ears and he glared at the jaws above him and as the world came back into full speed his words boomed out, "YOU WANT TO EAT ME FINE! BUT YOU'RE GOING TO FUCKIN CHOKE ON ME FIRST!"

Yui shoved the barrel of his shotgun farther up into the top of the jaw and pulled the trigger, pumping shots into the soft flesh on the Threshers mouth. There was a hiss and the smell of cooking meat as the shotgun over heated. He wasn't going down without a fight. He was GOING to kill it before he died, and nothing was going to stop him! Suddenly the Maw jerked back, almost dislodging Yui from his perch in the beasts mouth. Something slammed into its head, sending the beasts head fly back and hurling Yui from its mouth. He flew several feet before slamming into the ground and bouncing a bit farther before coming to a stop. He lay stunned for a few moments before pushing himself into a sitting position with a groan. He glanced about confused, and turned to see the back of the Maw. Why had it throw him from its mouth? And what were those beams sticking out of its body doing there? Maws didn't grow things like that right? He watched as a bolder flew up from the ground before the Thresher Maw and cracked in half cross its face he watched as a chunk of it continued its flight. Was it getting bigger? Why. Then it dawned on him and he let out a groan. "Oh you mother fuck-" There was a massive flare of pain before everything went suddenly and very violently black.


	11. Chapter Nine: The Sword and Pirate

Chapter Nine: The Sword and Pirate

Pain explode through his body as he came to. He groaned, and tried to move but something large and heavy sat on his chest. What was it? He settled down to think, he wasn't willing to make things worse by doing anything rash. Wait, since when did he think like that? He sat searching his mind when he heard someone calling his name in the distance. It came back in a rush, Natalya, his daughters, the escape pod, the Thresher Maw, the boulder... The fuckin boulder. The one Scarlet had thrown. Or at least he assumed it was her, the only other one that could have done it was Merix but he doubted she would have. Far too smart to try and take on a Maw like that. He felt around the rubble covering him and found that the biggest one was loose enough for him to shove it off. He assumed that it wouldn't hurt to move it, so he pushed it away. Pain shot through his body as he moved it off, but he just growled and forced his way through it anyway. He wasn't going to just sit there and wait for someone to come rescue him. Once the rock was gone it didn't take much for him to get the rest of the rocks off. He pushed himself to his feet and collapsed as his fake leg gave way. The acid of the Maw and the abuse it had gone through had been too much for the old thing. He yelled out as he hit the ground, broken bones and dissolved sections of skin sent a surge of pain through him.

"Yui! You stubborn old bastard, how in the hell are you still alive?" Yui just moaned back, "Shut the fuck up and get over here. My damn leg broke. Bloody prosthetic shit, can never make something that's as tough as a real Krogan leg not even out of fuckin metal." She just laughed and moved over to him, "Well com'on then. Lets get the hell out of here." She grabbed his arm and grunted as he used her to pull himself up. "You big lump of meat. You gotta lose some weight." He just let out a strained chuckled, "You just need to get stronger. I'm all muscle." They met up with the rest of the team and moved away from the landing site. "Right" Yui grunted, "Lets see... which way is north." He glanced about looking for the sun. Scooge immediately stood forward proudly pointing, "North is that way!" Yui spotted the sun finally and glanced at Scooge. "Actually he's right. That is North. So ya kids, lets head that way. We'll probably hit a clan territory eventually. From there we can buy passage off this planet, or at least we can call make a call to the council for some." The others nodded and they began to move north. Sheldon glanced at the limping Yui who was now using the stronger Gogzurah as a crutch to make up for his lost leg and sighed. "This is going to take too long. Wait a moment, I'll find something to fix that leg of yours with." The Salarian moved into the nearest pod and was gone for about a minute before returning with a length of pipe, the cut ends of it still glowing red hot from where he had used his omni-tool to remove it. He knelt down by Yui's leg, "Right first things first, try and bend the knee." He obliged and they watched hanging half melt electronics swing around when ever it moved. "Good that makes this simple. It will be awkward but it will allow you to walk on your own till we can get a real replacement."

Yui just grunted as he watched Sheldon placed his tools omni-blade between a section of his broken leg and the pipe before activating an incendiary program that quickly sent drops of melted metal running to the ground. He pulled the blade back and allowed Yui's weight to hold the two pieces together while they cooled. Once done it made him chuckle. "It reminds me of something out of one of those human Holo vids. They used to think all pirates ran around with peg legs and eye patches." He laughed and tested out his new leg. "Ya this will work fine. Thanks Squishy." Sheldon ignored him and the team started to head north again as Yui followed looking amused. There was a whine of an engine that sent the team scrambling for cover as some sort of shuttle passed over head moving to the North. Yui growled at the markings it so arrogantly displayed, "Looks like Natalya's people are coming to look for her. They can't be too happy with Johnson for shooting us down with her still on board." The others nodded grimly, "We going to change direction?" Scarlet watched where the shuttle landed farther North of them before shaking her head, "No we're not. Not when they so kindly supplied us with a shuttle to use." Yui grinned again, "I like this idea. Lets go get it done before too many others show up."

The team studied the shuttle that sat silent before them, whatever search group had come with it had already moved off and all that was left was a small team of three watching over the ship. Yui grunted, "What ever you guys are thinkin to take them out, don't include me in it. My armor might as well not even be there at this point, and I'm going to be healing for awhile longer before I can fight." He settled back and watched the others start plotting on how to take the three Asari guarding the ship without setting off alarms everywhere. He checked over his armor again as he sat on the ruins of an old wall, he was going to have to replace it. An inspection of his shotgun left him with a pleasant surprise, there was some minor corrosion that left his gun looking like it had gone through hell and back, but it was still fully functional. At least he was no longer helpless if they were forced to fight, though he doubted he would last long under fire. A consensus had been reached and Gogzurah, Scooge, and Scarlet settled in side by side on the small hill that provided cover. He watched with interest as Scarlet picked up a rock about the size of a credit chit and held it in her palm. Gogzurah had his sniper leveled out and Scooge was staring intently down his heavy pistols sights while Scarlet glowed biotic blue with the rock hovering just above her palm. They glanced at one another and Scarlet turned back to him, "Care to be our timer?" Yui grunted, "Sure. Not much else I can do. Five, four, ready, steady, one and..." The three ambushers sat tense and watching intently down their sights waiting for him to give the word. He let it drag out a bit to make them sweet before, "Fire!" A pair of gun shots rang out and the pebble seemed to vanish from Scarlets hand. The three grinned at one another as they stood up and admired their work, "Quick and clean! Com'on guys, we gotta get to that ship before anyone comes to check on the gun shots. Yui limped in behind them and studied the bodies amused. Two head shots, and the third one had a hole the size of a pebble in her suit, right over her heart. What amused him more was the three neat holes in the side of the ship. As he moved into the ship he reminded himself again that he needed to get inertia dampeners installed in his next suit if he was going to have her keep tossing him around.

They were gone from the landing site long before anyone came to investigate, moving to the nearest population center Yui knew about. It wasn't the most pleasant place, just a small hub that the Krogan used as a space port for mercs and pirates that came recruiting. A little money in the right hands got them a berth stay in, a newer sturdier leg for Yui, and a doctor to look at their wounds while the ship came with the communication equipment they needed to get a message to the Council requesting pick up. After four days of sitting in the Krogan doctors 'hospital' Yui became to restless to stay put. The doctor scowled at him when he demanded to be allowed to leave, and answered by punching him in one more damaged areas of his body. Yui didn't flinch, it was still a bit tender, but even as a child he had been told his regeneration rate was monstrous. Over the years that had only grown stronger. The doctor finally threw up his hands in defeat, "Fine but don't expect me to fix you up if you get hurt." Yui just scoffed, "Ya well all you did was set my damn bones, so what use are you anyway." The doctor just ignored him and went on to work on someone else. Yui moved out of the hospital and scanned the area. He spotted what he was looking for and went over to the motor pool, "Hey you! How much if I wanna rent a Tomkah?"

He bounced along in his seat in silence, in the end he had had to buy the tank, but that didn't matter to him. He had decided it was time to go home, and he wasn't going to let a little money stand between him and there. The Council ship wasn't due for another week anyway, this way he had a way to move around when ever he felt like it. The wind picked up a bit as he started moving on into the salt wastes, a place no one wanted to live. A place where not even Varren ventured thanks to the lack of water needed to maintain even the most basic of living needs. The place his clan called home. They had been proud of it, they thrived where no other being could even live! Or at least they had at one time thrived there. That had changed with the Genophage. That damn disease, a curse placed on the Krogan for their sins. But then it wasn't the curse that was killing them. Clan Hei was a testament to that. It began to grow dark as he drew close to his destination, casting the land before him in dark shadows and memories of times past. He slowed the Tomkah as he neared the outer limits of the ruined village, coming to a stop just short of the outer most buildings. He stared for a few long minutes at the ruins shrouded in shadows before finally pulling himself out of the truck and moving through the streets. Memories washed over him as he slowly walked to the center of the village, memories of laughing children, the roars of laughter from the old tavern where the vets drank their days away when they weren't fighting, venders selling anything and everything... Finally he stood before the center building, the clan leaders home. Or at least what was left of it. In his minds eye he saw towering buildings of scavenged wood and metal, built long ago to hold families much larger than the ones that inhabited them. But those memories quickly turned to smoke, fire, and cries of pain and fear till they finally were swept away by the cold dry wind that signaled the fall of night to reveal nothing more than twisted blackened metal where homes once stood. All that remained was the first level of the main house, the only one made more of stone than wood. He stood in front of his fathers home, the home of every clan leader since the clan had moved to this desolate waste, for a long time. Long enough that the last of the suns light faded away and he was left standing in the dark of the night.

Finally he forced his feet forward, and quietly stepped into the main room. Even after all this time it still smelled a bit of the ashes that once coated the land in black. He stood in silence as memories surrounded him and let them flood him with half forgotten feelings. His fathers lessons on fighting, on leading, on how to be a Krogan, watching as his older brother Hei Null fell to their fathers blade when he challenged for the right of leadership. He remembered lessons of blade work better than any other, they had been the thing that had made him and his father close. At least they had till the day he disarmed the older Krogan. It was the memory that came clearest to him, it was a month after his 40th birthday and his two week long trek through the salt wastes that was their coming of age trial and they were sparing for the first time since he had returned. The blades had danced in their hands while a crowd had gathered around them. It was tradition in the clan that all warriors of age always carried a blade and knew how to fight with them. The clans rite of passage was to be brought out deep in the salt wastes to be left with nothing but a single blade. If they returned alive that blade became theirs, and became a sign of their honor as a member of the clan and a Krogan. The better you were with a blade, the more respect you earned. The blades flashed faster and faster, sparks flew on both sides, a long cut opened across Yui's face, the first blood, then a gasp of disbelief followed by silence broken only by the clatter of a fallen sword. Yui had drawn his father in by leaving himself open, left him the opportunity for first blood in exchange for the win. His father glanced down at his bloodied sword hand before look back to the proud panting Yui, who waited for his fathers pride to lavished on him for becoming the warrior he had always wanted. He was not expecting the blow that left him reeling as his father Hei Murs flew into a rage that left his son laying half dead on the ground.

Yui looked away from the sparring area as he touched the scar he had earned that day before turning to the room he had come looking for. As far as he knew he was the only one left that knew the door was there, it was well hidden from all outsiders and he was the last living member of the clan. He set his hands on the hidden latches and shoved. The latches scraped in and clicked but the wall didn't move. "Of course it could always be too old to move. Broken old shit." He stood back and studied the wall and then his cybernetic leg. It was Krogan built unlike his last one, heavy hydraulics and metals made it stronger than his organic one. Perfect door opener he thought with a grin, he set himself and lifted his foot up. There was a hiss of hydraulics as he slammed his foot into where the door should be. There was a massive crack as it broke in half and a grinding noise as it fell in. He grinned as he took a look inside. Too dark, even with his sharp eye sight he could only make out the larger shapes. He activated the light on his omni-tool and moved inside to study the the rooms contents and the light glinted off a suit of armor sitting at the back of the room. His smile faded away at the sight of it, his fathers old... "No" he growled, "Not my fathers armor. The armor of the clan leader. My armor." He examined the old suit and was impressed. He had never gotten a good look at it in the past, just had seen it from afar when his father had worn it into combat. A closer look revealed that as every leader before him since the clan was formed in a feudal Tuchanka Murs had updated it to match the advancing weapons. Shield emitters had been put in during the rebellion, and when they had moved to the salt wastes it had turned out the Thresher Maws had already claimed them, so it had been updated once more with inertia dampeners for when one threw him around. The tech was probably out of date by now but he could always update it with something newer.

He sat back and took another look around the room to make sure there wasn't anything else of interest and paused as he saw something he hadn't seen in over four hundred years. Sitting in the holder where his father had put all that time ago was his sword. His hand touched the combat knife he carried around in place of the sword as his mind flashed back to the days of his training. His hand seemed to reach out on its own and grasped the hilt of his old blade. He started out slow and sped up more and more till the blade was a blur spinning around and around in the air in front of him. It was heavier than his knife, but still felt more right than the lighter blade. He spun and slashed the blade into one of the support beams of the room. The blade smashed through it and came to a stop on the other side. He stood panting for a few seconds studying his reflection in the blade when a groan from the ceiling above him brought him out of the trance. "Ummm... maybe I shouldnta done that." He glanced at the door before hurrying over and grabbing the armor before taking off out the room as fast he could. Once outside he stared back at the door he came from for a few seconds. When nothing went down he just shrugged and went back to the Tumkah. He stored the armor there and drove up to where his old house was. He smiled as it came into view, nothing like coming home eh? He parked the APC outside and went inside. Nothing but dust was there to greet him. He settled in for the rest with nothing but dust and memories to keep him company.

The next morning he studied the old burnt out ruins in silence. "With strength comes power. With power comes leadership. With leadership comes clan and responsibility. May your arms guard these things well. Well dad, looks like you never even understood that yourself did you? You attacked Clan Urdnot and for what? Some water? Water we didn't even need. And what did you get for it? A night of fire and death. Well I hope your happy. Your dead. The clans dead. I'm all that's left other than dust, ruins, and some old swords left in the salts. I'm all that's left of our honor." He contemplated his owns words and the words his father had told from years before. Finally he turned away from the city and began to walk back to the tank, "Well if I'm going to be all that's left of our honor, I might as well make us look good." It was getting late in the day when he got back to the space port. He spent an hour arguing with the mechanic he got the Tumkah from till he got half of his money back for it. As he walked back to the ship an Asari emerged from it with her back to him, she was laughing back at someone as she left. She turned around to reveal that it was Merix, and she hesitated before smiling at him, "Hey dad! Are you a... where have you been?" He blinked in surprised at her, when he left she hadn't even been willing to talk to him. "I went home. Picked up a couple things." He suddenly chuckled, "Visited dad, the old bastard. Where you off to?" She shrugged, "Just goin off to do a bit of shopping." He hesitated, "Well uh...you want some help? Ya know to make sure no one tries to rip you off or something." She bit her lip before shrugging, "Okay sure. Why not." The two of them moved off into the market side by side, Yui knew by the way she began to ask him about some of the shore leaves from his time on the Defiant it was Scarlets handiwork that brought this change about. Still he was grateful for it. It was nice to talk to his daughter like this, and it was something he hadn't been able to do since the split from Natalya. It would be some time yet till the council ship arrived and he planned on taking the time to get to know her again. After all, who knows what tomorrow will bring.


	12. Chapter Ten: Vorcha

**A/N: I think I've finally figured out my schedule for this. I'm going to attempt regular weekly updates. It's going to work for a few weeks I know cause ethics class is boring and not work intensive but we'll see after that.**

**Chapter Ten: Vorcha**

Yui stood beside Scarlet in the council ships FTL room as they waited for the Councilor to get around to their com request and smile quietly to himself. She glanced at him before looking back to the console in front of them, "Whats got you in such a good mood?" "My new armor. Brought it to an arms merchant before we left to have the systems updated. He only gave me the most basic models, but he did tell me that the alloy on this is made for Maw hunting. If we run into one again then it probably won't be the acid that kills me." She just shook her head, "How many Thresher Maws do you hunt on foot that you need something acid proof?" Yui just shrugged, "It was what the clan was known for after the rebellion. Started when we took our clan lands from them and spread as other clans paid us to do it. Killed a lot of us though. Left us weak in the end. Still it was the clan leaders job to be at the fore front of the hunts, so the armor was re-designed to take the abuse of that. If you could say one good thing about my old man it was that he always lead from the front." Scarlet took another look at the armor in surprise, "Your fathers? You never said your dad was clan leader." Yui just shrugged, "Didn't seem important." She turned back and thought about it for a bit before, "Doesn't that mean you should be back on Tuchanka running the clan?" Yui snorted, "I thought I told you about this last shore leave. Or were you too drunk to remember? Ah well, there's nothing left of the clan. Just me and my daughters."

Scarlet hesitated and a warning light came up informing them of an incoming call before she decided how to answer him. She took a breath and accepted the call. The Turian councilor appeared before them, and both him and Scarlet were taken off guard when Yui stepped forward with a wide grin and a cheerful "Hello Councilor! Aren't you looking just fabulous today. How are you doing, well I hope." The Turian hesitated with a look of suspicion before finally ignoring him, "I don't have much time right now, so this is going to be brief. First what the happened that you lost the last ship we gave you?" Scarlet stepped up this time, "Johnson has been detection equipment than we thought. We had the stealth systems up and running yet at least one of the ships in his fleet picked us up and provided targeting data to the rest. We got out of that but they had managed to get a boarding team on us when we were busy. The team was eliminated but they had returned us to Tuchanka where one of Johnson's Dreadnoughts was waiting for us. We barely got out before their main guns tore the ship apart."

The Turian nodded, "I see. Well we are arranging for a new ship to be made available to you, in the mean time we've re-routed you to Illium. There's an info broker there that will direct you to a defector from the Blood Pack group currently working for Johnson. Get the defector off Illium and find out what he knows. By then we'll have a ship for you to use. Don't blow this one up, we can't keep replacing them." Yui answered with another cheerful, "Don't worry sir we have every intention of making sure the next ship is returned to port in pristine condition! Is that right Scarlet?" Scarlet smiled sweatly in response, "Of course, and if there's anything we can do to make the process easier, and I mean absolutely anything, please do not hesitate to tell us. We're here to make you happy!" The Turian's eyes shot back and forth between the two before finally responding, "Okay then... I uh, I have other business to take care of. We have made funds available to you should they be necessary to acquire the defector." Yui's chipper response of, "Why thank you so much! Now if you excuse us please, we have to go brief the rest of the team. I hope you have a wonderful day." made the Turians brow plates twitch in a mixture of both confusion and annoyance as he reached out and cut the feed.

Yui turned back to Scarlet with his smile growing wider as a mischievous glint came to his eyes, "Now that bastards going to be wondering what in the hell we're planning that would make a Krogan so happy to talk to him. It's going to eat at the back of his mind for days." Scarlet laughed and shook her head as she made her way out of the room, "Like we're more than an after thought to him. Com'on we gotta go tell the others whats up." Yui shook his head, "Nah you go on an' do it without me. I got things." Scarlet shrugged as Yui moved in the opposite direction, towards the crew compartments. He walked silently into medical bay a few minutes later and went over to where Deras lay in the comma she had been in since taking the blow to the head. The medical crew had done what they could for her, but said she would wake up when she was ready. The damage had been more extensive than it appeared, they didn't know what she would and would not remember when, or if, she woke up. The brain itself could be fixed, but any memories would be lost forever. He watched over her for a time before heading off to the armory.

The captain of the ship, a Turian whose name Yui hadn't cared to learn, wasn't comfortable with a Krogan running around armed in a closed in space full of Turians, so he had been forced to leave his weapons in the armory. Scarlet had had to talk him into leaving his sword there, his opinion is that if he was going to leave it anywhere after only just getting it back after all these years it would be in the captains gut. He walked up to the door of the armory and was stopped by the Turian marines standing guard over it, "Where do you think you're going? This area is restricted." Yui sighed, "I'm here cause I wanna do some maintenance on my weapons. You don't like it, you go get the Specter Venria to tell me no. Till then I'm going to go take care of stuff, and there aint a lot you can do to stop me unless you wanna explain to the Specter why you shot her second in command. Now excuse me, I've got things to do." The guards didn't look happy but let him past without anymore fuss. Once alone inside he just snorted, "Bloody racists. Bet they wouldn't have bothered any of the others if it was one of them that tried to get in here. Next time I should just make the idiots eat those Phanstons of theirs."

He just sighed once more and shoot his head, no Scarlet would be mad at him if he went around causing problems. He let the two marines leave his mind as he shifted over to his equipment laying in a neat pile on its own. He checked and cleaned the guns first, pausing on the words carved into the stock of his Claymore before using a combat knife he kept for emergencies to add a pair of new lines to it. 'Property of Hei Yui. Touch and die like the last one that did it.' He nodded to himself satisfied before moving on to his sword. The blade was a hand and a half sword, meant to be used with either one or both hands. Words engraved into the hilt at its forging flashed in the lights of the armory, a remembrance of times long gone. It read, "From salt to dust, may all tremble before you." He took a deep breath, taking in the old metals scent quietly. The sharp tang of metal mixed with the smell of the ancient salt flats it had sat in for far too long. Ah the salt flats. He had only found that a smell such as it on the shores of planets covered in salt oceans, but they had never felt the same to him. Too moist, and mixed with the scent of things long dead. No his salt flats were much drier, mixed with the dust that covered the rest of the planet but more pure he thought. He cleaned the blade quietly and made sure the edge was ready for use before replacing it and leaving.

It was a week and a half before they arrived at Illium, stopping to drop off some of their troop compliment at some colony or another before moving on, and Yui had become more and more agitated with the ship. He had no problem with long trips through space, in fact he enjoyed watching the void go by observation windows, but the Turian crew had given him the cold shoulder ever since he come aboard, and some of the marine compliment had been down right nasty. If it hadn't been for Scarlet he thought they might have done more than give him dirty looks and call him things that made his translator skip. Not that they knew Yui had any idea what they were calling him, he had gone to Gogzurah about the words his translator didn't know. And in the case of some to tell him what in the hell the phrases actually meant even after being translated.

After disembarking the team moved through customs using Scarlets credentials to stream line the process and leaving the crew of the Turian ship to fend for themselves. Once in the city they finally stopped and Sheldon asked the most important question, "So did we actually get the name of the information broker we're looking for? Or at least a location or maybe a way to contact them?" The team turned to Scarlet and Yui and stared. Yui slowly edged away from Scarlet muttering, "I'm just the muscle here. I kill things, drink beer, and get paid." Scarlet rolled her eyes, "Yes I've got a way to contact her. Some Asari. I also got a message an hour ago that our new ship is in port so we're going to go move onto it while I message the broker." The others just nodded and moved off through the port to find their new ship. Sitting in the port was another small stealth ship like the last one they had. They shifted into the ship and were less than surprised that the inside was just like the outside. Yui silently placed his Varren in one of the spare rooms but after that he simply left the ship and lead against the railing to watch traffic go by outside.

His prizes, pieces of dead geth, a couple heads, salvaged weapons he had intended on having fixed up and sold the next time they went into port, even his beer had gone up with the last ship. He had no reason to hang around the ship if he couldn't even drink on it. Footsteps moved up behind him after a time and a figure leaned against the rail beside him facing the other way. Scarlet stayed there for a time before asking, "You moved to Deras to a hospital here didn't you?" Yui shook his head, "No. Her and Merix are going to the Citadel to have her looked at there." She just nodded and the two sat in silence till a beep from her Omni-tool singled an incoming message. She glanced over it and nodded, "Right the broker wants to meet in her office. I've got something else I've gotta do and Gogzurah is doing work on the ships flight controls, you think that you, Sheldon, and Scooge can take care of it?" He glanced at her in surprise and nodded, "Sure if you want, but won't she be expecting you to be there?" She shook her head, "No I've told her to expect you guys. I've been givin credits to pay her with, you take them instead. Once you have the name of the target message me. I want to be there when you make contact." Yui nodded and moved back into the ship, "Right I'll take care of it. Have fun with whatever it is you're doing."

An hour later the three men settled into their seats across from a smiling Asari. Scooge leaned forward, "So I take it you're the one with the info?" She nodded, "In fact I've done a little digging and according to my info you boys have been hunting Johnson for a while now and you don't even know what he's after, or why." Scooge glanced at Yui who just shrugged, "I'm not here to know why I'm after the guy. I'm here for the money." The Asari raised an eye brow at him, "Not a deal to get rid of those bounties then?" Yui snorted, "Nah I took care of the official ones already. The others are either personal or Batarian. If those four eyed bastards wanna come after me they're welcome to try, but only their slavers would actually care about it. Not too popular a contract either, Krogan don't make the best slaves." She shrugged, "Very well. If you have the credits to pay me we can get this over quickly." Yui grunted, "Half now and half after we verify the info on that informant. And any extra info you can give us could earn a bonus if its useful." She nodded and waited till he transferred the first part of the payment before beginning, "First of all this pirate, Long John Johnson, is after military equipment. Ships, guns, tech, anything he can get his hands on. It seems he's looking to raid science vessels, facilities, black market merchants have become a favorite too. He's been making a lot of enemies but at the same time he has made even more money. Selling stolen drugs, captured ships, information, anything he can't use he sells."

"He's been using that to buy every pirate and merc willing to sell to him. His work has put him at odds with the Blue Suns and parts of the Eclipse, but the Blood Pack hasn't got any trouble working with him and other parts of the Eclipse have come over to his side. Most of his men come from a Batarian pirate group run by someone named Sark Baralk, apparently he has some high level contacts in the Hegemony and has quite the fleet under his command. Most of it used to be slaver ships, but with a fewer larger ships in the mix. That worth a bonus to you?" Yui nodded, "Ya that sounds worth the bonus. So now what about the informant? He going to be able to tell me more?" She shrugged, "Don't know what he knows but I do know where he is so that you can find out. He's a Vorcha, ex-Blood Pact. Left them a couple of days ago after he had worked for Johnson. More than that you'll have to ask him. I'll transfer his location to you now-" She looked ready to say more as she tapped away on an Omni-tool sending Yui the info when Scooge and Yui's shields began to beep a warning of being offline. Both of them turned to glare at Sheldon who shrugged, "I got tired of you two staring down her shirt like idiots. Thought you could use a wake up call." Yui scowled, "Just cause I want to admire the view doesn't mean-" This time it was Yui interrupted by the windows behind them exploding into the office as a cluster of sniper shots slammed into the room. Scooge had shifted enough in his seat that the bullet meant for his heart went through his chair instead and sparks flew as a set hit Yui's heavy armor. More bounced off Sheldon's shields and they all dove into the make-shift cover the room could provide.

There was a pause and Scooge poked up his head hunting for the snipers and took a pair of snap shots before hitting the ground again as more shots popped in around him. "The roof across the street. They know how to shoot but they're not pros. Didn't even try to hide, and their position looks like a shooting gallery to me." Yui grunted, "To you maybe, but I need to be closer to than this. Hey Asari do you have a car or..." His voice trailed away as he glanced around the desk and found the Asari slumped forward in her chair. He couldn't tell if she was alive or not so he just sighed and moved up to search her pockets. He held up the keys to a car and the others nodded. He popped up and clicked the car alarm to find it before having to duck the incoming fire. They glanced at one another quietly and Yui pointed to Sheldon then himself and the window. He nodded and then popped up with Scooge who laid down cover fire as Sheldon and Yui hurtled through the front window of the first floor office into the bushes below it.

Yui put his back to the snipers and used his armored back to cover Sheldon as he opened the car door and started the car. He hurled himself into the back seat after and they floored it to the top of the neighboring building. Scooge let his pistols cool as the snipers targeted the car and the Krogan and Salarian pulled up over them. As Yui shoved up his door and dropped to the roof while still ten foot up another hail of more accurate gun fire rained down on the backs of the snipers, Scooge showed off his new ammo mod as explosive shots tore all accept two of the snipers apart. The last of the hit men stumbled away from the shredded remains of their team mates and looked up in time to find themselves standing in front of a very large and angry Krogan standing in front of them. He slammed a hand into each of their chests sending them plummeting off the side of the building to the ground fifteen stories below. Yui looked down with a grunt of satisfaction at the sight of the would-be assassins broken bodies below.

Yui put on his helmet and tapped into the communicator built into it ringing Scarlet, "Hey Red you there?" There was a pause before she answered, "Ya whats up?" "We just had some guys try to kill us. Bunch of rookies with snipers someone had trained to hit a target but not how to fight. We got what we needed from the information broker before they hit us, I'm sending you the Informants location, it's apparently a Vorcha that used to work for the Pack. You might want to keep an eye out for more hit men on the way over but I suggest you go take care of that sooner rather than later. Keep an eye out for more hit men and we'll meet you on the ship later, I'll fill you in on everything when we can be sure not to have anyone listening in." There was another pause before she answered, "Got it. I'll head over to the apartments then meet you back at the ship then. Good luck." Yui snorted, "Don't need luck. A Maw couldn't kill me, some half-assed rooks aint gonna do it." He took off his helmet and glared at Sheldon who had the car hovering next to him, "I blame you for the bullet marks on my armor. Had to be a dick and shut off my shields." The Salarian just shrugged, "I'll fix it for you. Come on lets just get back to Scooge and get out of here."

When they walked into the office again to find Scooge sitting with the Asari checking over her bullet wounds as she babbled thanks for saving her to him. The others just sat silent and watched as he promised to wait with her and protect her till the police arrived. Three hours later they finally returned to the ship, Yui noted with a boredom dulled mind that it had some Salarian name he couldn't translate off the top of his head. They walked into the ship to find Scarlet sitting with Gogzurah and a twitchy looking Vorcha pacing around the room that jumped when the airlock opened to let them in. Yui collapsed into his gunnery station heaving a hefty sigh, "Hey Red. That took was too long thanks to lover boy there. He the Blood Pack guy?" Scarlet nodded, "Ya his names..." she paused, "How did you pronounce it again?" The Vorchas eyes darted between them before hissing, "Iscallic." She just shrugged, "That." She rolled her eyes, "He's been a wealth of info about how he's a super soldier cloning project, and that they probed him daily with some alien artifact or something but uh not so much help on what Johnson's doing." Yui raised an eye brow, "Ooookay then. Why's he here then?" Scarlet just shrugged, "Why not. Poor guy looked like he needed someone to watch out for him and I figured he was Blood Pact so he can handle himself. Please tell me you got something more from the Asari." Yui grinned at that, "Oh we got plenty. And..." He reached into a pocket and pulled out a credit chit, "Our money back. Who wants to go out for drinks, my treat!"


	13. Chapter Eleven: Bar

**Chapter Eleven: Bar**

Yui settled in at the bar with a bottle of Ryncol he had gotten the tender to leave him. Normally he would have just stuck with the weaker human beer but tonight he felt was a good night to get drunk. He poured a glass and began to think about the day. Scooge had complained when he had found out Yui had stole the credit chit back and had gone back to the Asari (Alura wasn't it?) to return it. "How do humans say?" he mussed quietly, "Goody shoes?" He just shrugged and took a drink. Today had been more interesting than he had expected it would be if nothing else. Hit men were always fun, and meant you were doing something right. Not only that, the Vorcha turned out to be fairly entertaining too. Crazy bugger thought he was a clone. Don't know what Johnson had done to him, but he chattered on and on about the buzzing in the back of his mind, how the blood pack was "after him cause he knows too too much yes he does, far too much yes." Now if only Scarlet hadn't gotten funds to arm him like she did. The little freak had gone out and bought a Cain. Nasty things those. Got some cheap Assault rifle too but it was the Cain that worried him.

Ah well she did make up for it he thought with a grin. His mind drifted back a couple hours earlier to the arms shop him, Scarlet, and the Vorcha, Iscallic, had gone to. He had been the quickest to find what he wanted and get out. Scarlet was examining some heavy armor she wanted, while Yui argued with the human shop owner about the price of it. "Thirty thousand? Are you kidding me? It's not worth nearly that much! Its only worth fifteen max!" The shop owner just stared back passively, "It's thirty and I'm not going to go down on it. This is designed specifically with Biotics in mind, it won't interfere with their powers, but will still provide all the protection of normal heavy armor. It's not cheap to make." Yui scowled and moved to tower over the shop keeper, "Do I look like I'm in the mood to negotiate with you either? It's only worth fifteen." The shop keeper just looked annoyed, "Don't care what you think. You've got the price, either buy it or leave." Before Yui could say anything the top half of Scarlets current armor hit the counter next them, "Could you take a look at this and tell me how much you would give me in trade credit for it?"

The man turned to her, "Well I don't... know..." His voice trailed away and Yui's mind went equally blank as he looked at her as well. They both watched as she shimmied out of the bottom half her armor as well and set it next to the rest. She leaned forward over the counter and both the men's eyes fallowed every move, "Come on you can give me a little discount for my old armor right?" Without taking his eyes off her he just nodded and murmured, "Sure. That's fine." She clapped her hands and bounced up and down a bit sending both Yui and the humans eyes dancing up and down as well, "Really? Thank you so much! I've only got twenty thousand with me, is that enough for it?" The shop keeper just nodded again and Scarlet smiled, "Great! Hey Yui could you take care of it for me? I promise to make up for it later." The Krogan's head bobbed up and down silently and obediently. She smiled at them as she went over to the case the armor was kept in, "Could you open this up for me?" The shop keeper nodded and keyed in the code to the case. Scarlet pulled out the armor and slowly pulled it on. Once finished getting dressed again she smiled and waved good bye to the two men before leaving.

They stood awhile in silence before the human commented, "Too bad she had those shorts on." Yui glanced at him, "Ya but nothings ever perfect. Like how I just realized I'm paying for it." His mind came back to the present as the bar began to fill up and he found out it was a Karaoke night at the bar and that Volus songs sounded like shit, especially when sung by a drunk Turian. He drained his glass and poured another for himself as the song ended and the next singer got onto stage. He paused when he saw in a mirror let the left of the bar the pirates in the crowd trying and failing to be inconspicuous as they moved up behind him. The idiots hadn't even changed into unmarked armor, they still had Sarks emblem glaring for the world to see. Yui shifted uncomfortably, of all the days to have his armor upgraded with new tech he had to pick today. He slugged back the last drink before watching them move closer to him. They didn't seem to have realized he knew they were there, so he decided they didn't realize that Krogan had a 240 degree vision, the mirror was far enough down the bar another species wouldn't have been able to see the reflection. He waited and realized their plan was to get close and take him out from point blank range. He smiled quietly to himself as they left the range of the mirror and shifted the glass bottle of the ryncol to watch them better in its reflection. He waited till the leads shotgun was almost touching him, and the pirates face split into a massive grin, he had them now.

With a speed deceptive of his hulking frame he spun around and grabbed the shotgun and yanked the other pirate forward, the Batarian was stunned and swung a panicked punch aimed for Yui's head. Yui didn't even flinch instead pulled the man forward and slammed his head into his own. The would-be assassin was dazed and his friends snapped out of their shock of the Krogan sudden re-action and opened up. Yui yanked the Batarian around in front of him and his shields rippled and the failed. Yui pushed forward through the gun fire as the body of the pirate danced as bullets ripped into it. Yui lifted the shotgun from the bodies hands and returned fire around the body, sending on of the other six hit men down. He tossed the body aside as their guns began to hiss from overheating and grabbed the nearest one to him. He slammed the mans head into a near by table before his fist whipped out to cave in another's nose, sending him crashing to the ground. He shifted forward and flipped the shotgun around to swing it like a bat to snap another hit mans neck. The last three began falling back from him and opened up again.

Most of the shots missed but a couple punched into his body sending spikes of white hot pain through his body. He felt anger bubbling up and hurled himself into the incoming fire without any hesitation. He either had to hurl himself into the assault or die, and he wasn't ready to die yet. He caught one of the three in his charge which carried them both across the room to slam into the far wall with a sickening crunch as bones gave way between the solid Krogan and the wall. He stepped back and turned to the other two, and was surprised to see them crumpling to the ground in front of him a shot in each of their heads. He glanced around and spotted a familiar Drell standing on the stage with a pair of smoking Kessler pistols. Yui just chuckled, "Shoulda known you would show up for a place like this. You're just weird enough to do it." Scooge just grinned, "Ya well it doesn't look like we're going to be here much longer. That bartender looks mad." Yui glanced over at the old Asari that ran the bar glowering at him and grimaced, "You know what Scooge I think you're right. I think I'm going to walk out before I'm thrown out. You might wanna do the same." The Drell nodded and hurried out as Yui high tailed it as well. Shouts from the bar tender followed them out and the two were long gone before the police got to show up.

Yui settled in as the borrowed ship lifted off from Illium and watched as the city fell away. He wasn't going to go back there any time soon, they had stayed on planet long enough for him to get his armor back but Yui hadn't left the ship during the few hours it took for that to get done. He now had another warrant for his arrest to add to his list, like the others it wouldn't take too long for it to expire or at least become lost in the system, but he still kept a list of bounties and warrants he had gathered over the years for the sake of his own entertainment. He sighed to himself, it was probably going to be the last time he was going to be at Illium anyway. He had no reason to go back after all, and Scarlet had a plan to propose to the Council for how to catch Johnson. She said she wanted to do it in person but Yui knew the real reason they were going. Deras had woken up and Merix had sent him a message telling him he needed to come see them as soon as he could. Yui knew the news was bad but was going to go anyway. He had to. They were his children after all, his daughters. And he wasn't going to abandon them no matter what. Soon this all would be over and after it was all Yui wanted was to retire to keep an eye on his daughters in peace. And he would kill anyone that ruined it.


	14. Chapter Twelve:The Calm Before the Storm

**Chapter Twelve: The Calm Before the Storm**

Yui cleaned his weapon in silence. He had just gotten back from the hospital Deras was staying in. They had done more work on her, physically she was healthy again and well on the way to mending. Mentally though… she had greeted him with a squeal of Daddy and asked him if he had brought her a present. She hadn't asked him that since she turned sixteen. He spoke with the doctor and had been told she had reverted back to a childhood mentality. He talked to Merix about it after as well, she agreed with the doctor that Deras was just as she was as a kid and it looked like she didn't even remember the basics of her life after the age of eleven. It could have been much worse, at least she could re-learn what she's forgotten. Yui thought back to the boarding action, if he had grabbed the shotgun, if he had hit her harder, if he had managed to cross the distance between him and Natalya… He wanted to blame Scarlet for it too, but he couldn't bring himself to do it. He had seen her turn peoples organs to mush with her power before, but she had held back and only knocked their heads together. He studied the sword in his hands, now shining like a mirror, and wondered what he was going to do with her. Where was it safe for her?

He set his sword aside and stood up, there was no reason to stay in the ship. Only Gogzurah was still there, and he was asleep. Scooge and Scarlet were off talking to the council proposing their insane plan, both Sheldon and the Vorcha were off who knows where doing whatever it was they were doing. He shifted out of the ship and shifted off thinking it was about time to get really and truly drunk. The last time he had tried he had been interrupted by the fight. Normally that wouldn't bother him but he hadn't gotten to keep drinking thanks to it. The bar he found was in a back ally, dark, dingy, and full of the type of person no one wanted to meet. Perfect. He even recognized a few of the people there; they were the criminal element of the Citadel and kept out of the line light, but then so was he. Or at least he had been. He settled in at the bar, ordered Ryncol, and drowned in booze and memories. He had done so many things in just 400 years of life, killed a Thresher Maw, slaughtered his way through Geth, done business with Aria the Queen of Omega, and over the years had collected a number of bounties. He had been wanted for everything from drunk and dis-orderly, to kid napping, to terrorism. He had stolen ships, murdered civilians, and saved them as well. He had gone where the money was, and even followed his heart for a while, long enough to get married and have two beautiful daughters.

Now he was working for a Specter, sitting in a bar drinking to his memories, and getting eyed by some Asari sitting a ways down the bar from him. There was a Turian with her that supported the tats and colors of some local gang. He had taken note of about half a dozen of them sitting around the room when he had entered, but only three were there. It looked like the Turian was trying very hard to talk the Asari into going back to his place. She suddenly stood up and moved over to Yui, "Hey there big guy. Wanna buy a girl a drink?" He glanced at the now fuming Turian and back to her before smiling a toothy smile, "Sure why not. I would rather be drinking with a lovely woman than with an empty stool anyway." He thought the Turian was going to blow a gasket if he was reading the man's body language right. He suddenly stood up and motioned to his friends to follow him before heading in Yui and the Asaris direction with a determined look. He motioned for the bar tender to bring the woman a drink as he stood up, "Why don't you drink that while I take care of your friend." He looked at the Turians and gestured to the door of the bar, "I don't wanna be bothered with the macho bullshit, so you, me, and your friends there are all going to go outside and settle this right now. That is if you got the Quad to fight me and don't go crying to the Salarians to do it for you." He was a little surprised when the Turian actually went outside without a word, his body language screamed rage and Yui was expecting him to take a swing on the way.

As soon as Yui stepped out the door the Turian who's woman he stole punched him straight in the face, but he had expected that and came back with a returning blow that took the alien straight off his feet. He accepted another blow to the guts from human of the other two gang members before his own punch scattered the man's jaw like so much glass and left him sprawled on the ground. The last one looked between Yui and his friends before bolting down the ally. Yui just let him go and watched as the Turian rose back to his feet unsteadily before hurling himself forward at the Krogan. Yui slammed his prosthetic leg into the Turians groin as soon as it came into reach and left the Turian to collapse into his own private world of pain in peace. The two of them just weren't worth his time anymore. He returned to the seat next to the Asari and ordered himself another drink before turning back to her, "So do you start fights like that often or just when you want to get rid of an asshole?"

Yui and the Asari, whose name he didn't care about, stumbled into the ships dock laughing a few hours later drunk and carrying what was left of a bottle of Ryncol they had watered down with some human drink called Vodka. As he directed her to "his private ship" Scarlet was just getting back as well. She was alone and swaying side to side as she blinked at the two approaching her, "Well well look we got here. Who's dat, n why are you tryin to bring her to the 'hip?" Yui squinted at her, "This is my new friend. I wanted to show her around my ship! And I thought you were meetin with dos council people, why are you here and drunk?" Scarlet's eyes narrowed, "You are NOT bringin some strange pros- proste- whore onto my ship." Yui snorted, "She aint a whore and whossaid this was your shit? Er ship?" Scarlet just leaned forward, "I don want her on the ship. If your lookin to get laid so bad get rid of her and I'll take care of you." Yui just blinked at her, drunk as he was he could tell she was even worse than him. He could smell it from there. She raised an eye brow at him, "Fine then go have fun with your slut." As Scarlet started towards the ship Yui pushed the Asari from the bar away from him and looked at her solemnly, "This isn't my ship, and you can go home. I gotta better offer." He hurried after Scarlet ignoring angry sputtering coming from behind him, "Hey Red wait up! I got more booze!"

The next morning Yui groaned at his stiff joints as he attempted to get off the floor of the armory he had re-claimed as his own. What had he done last night? Why did he feel like he had been tumbled down stairs? Why was he sleeping on the floor? And why was he naked? Was it at least for a good reason? After the first failed attempt he realized two things. One he was still a bit drunk and two if he wanted to get up he should probably open his eyes first. He blinked into the over head lights letting his eyes adjust before trying to get up again. This time he succeeded and cast about for a better understanding of what had happened while memories of the bar started to trickle into his head. At the sight of the naked Specter on the bed in front of him it all came back in a rush. Coming back the ship, drinking even more with Scarlet, and some of the roughest sex he had had in a while. Then storming out of the armory naked when Sheldon started playing some terrible music through the intercom system and disturbed his fun. After Yui terrified the Salarian by threatening to throw him out the airlock, Sheldon made things worse after a panicked attempt to turn the music off before finally the intercom fell silent once more and Yui returned the Scarlet for another few rounds. He had ended up on the floor when a sleepy Scarlet had decided to get rid of the annoying shape that was tossing and turning beside her, and Yui had simply passed out again.

There was a groan from Scarlet as she sat up and glanced around. The sight of both her and Yui's naked bodies made her moan as she fell back on to the bed, "Great. Just great." Yui cast about for his pants, "Hey you didn't seem that unhappy about me bein here last night." She finally sighed and shifted out of the bed, "Ya but we've gotta work together now. I try not to sleep with my subordinates, it's bad for the whole 'I'm in charge' thing if they've seen me naked like this." Yui just laughed as he finally found his pants, "Like I really listened to you in the first place. More importantly how did it go with the Council?" Scarlet was pulling on her own clothes as she answered, "They agreed to the plan. Said it would come out of our pay checks if anything happens the Destiny Ascension after the trap is sprung." Yui laughed again, "Like we could do worse than they already did. If wasn't for that human and his fleet the Ascension would be nothin but scrap and dust. What ever, let's go get things ready then. We got us a pirate to catch."


	15. Intermission Two

_**A/N: Well I could sit here and give you all the reasons in the world, but the biggest reason I haven't been updating is lack of motivation. Just haven't really felt like writing this and take my Rendering class. But I've decided to pick up where I left off, so for now, enjoy a short before a real chapter is posted.**_

**Intermission: Back to the past of a pirate**

**Twenty years ago: Aboard The Blue Death in orbit near Omega**

Yui grunted as he moved into the meeting room. After four years of refusing to be on the same ship as him Natalya had suddenly demanded to see Yui. He had delayed as much as he could of course, he was pissed that his own wife had given the crews orders to keep him away from her. He didn't even know what she was pissed about to do something that excessive, she had slept with the same girl a week before he did but she didn't see him getting mad about it. What ever. He paused to study Natalya sitting in her seat filling out paper work in silence before moving to the seat across from her and sitting down. He let the silence drag out, he had no intention of being the first to talk. No point in opening his mouth before he knew what was going on. Finally the Asari pushed the papers over to him and sat back without a word. He eyed her for a second before reading the paper work. Silence continued to rein before he slowly put the papers down. The two stared at each other before Natalya finally spoke, "Sign it." Yui said nothing for a time before finally saying, "No."

Natalya slowly nodded, "If you won't sign the papers then I guess there's only one course of action left." Yui stared at her, "I guess there is." The Asari stood up with a sign and Yui pushed himself to his feet as well. Natalya was the first to draw, pistol flashing into her hand and firing before he even touched his. Yui's heavy armor blocked the shots with ease but he was shocked. He hadn't expected her to actually try and kill him. He knew that this wasn't a fight he would win, he wasn't even armed. Sure he would kill her but this ship was hers and he knew it. If she died the crew would all be out for his head, and he was good but not that good. He moved fast, making for the door without any hesitation, and Natalya's arms burned the cold blue glow of Biotics as she hurled a wall of power at him. He was lifted off his feet and slammed into the wall, but he didn't stop moving to the door and the attack had been made with too much haste and was sloppy. The door opened to reveal a pair of shotgun packing Asari waiting for him, but he didn't hesitate and slammed them both into the far wall before they could react to his sudden entrance. The was a sickening crunch as they hit and when he stepped back the two of them fell limp with blood oozing from their mouths. He snapped up a Simitar from one of them and took off running down the hall as gun fire followed him and Natalya started screaming into a transmitter that he was to be eliminated on sight. He ignored her and ran trying to remember how to get to the hanger bay from there. He had to get off the ship before they got smart and did a jump into FTL.

He rounded a corner that he recognized to be near the hanger bay when they finally figured out where he was going. He heard Natalya screaming for him to be cut off as he charged down the hall and came around to the last hallway before he reached the hanger and slammed head first into gun fire from a pair of assualt rifles. He covered his head and kept running, stopping now would just mean that Natalya would catch up to him, his only chance was to get to a ship before they could get to him. He felt white hot pain shoot through his body as bullets started to crack through his armor but then he heard it. The wonderful sound of an overheat. A grin spread across his face, he had always told her that they needed to get better guns for the grunts. Now she would regret ignoring him. He lifted his head as he came into melee distance of the three guards desperately scrambling for pistols as they dropped the hot weapons. There was a crack of bone as Yui back handed the first, a boom as he used the shotgun one handed to put down the second, and finally slammed an extended arm into the thirds throat on the way by. He didn't know if the last one was dead but he didn't care. He made a mad dash for the nearest shuttle and heard the clatter of desperate foot steps behind him as he reached it. He slammed a hand into the control console to shut the door and heard something hissing through the air before white hot pain exploded in his right leg and he lost all feeling and strength in the lower half of it. The door slammed shut and with a hiss of pain Yui hauled himself into the cockpit using only his arms and adrenaline. He pulled himself into the pilots chair as the yelling began outside and figures started lining up in front of the cockpit. He ignored them and quickly brought up the controls. The ships engines whined to lift and he directed the normally insignificant weapons to the hanger doors and fired. If he hadn't been inside the ship then the shuttle probably wouldn't have been able to do anything to the ship, but from where he was he managed to punch a hole through the doors and flew out as gun fire followed him. He directed the shuttle straight to Omega and checked on his leg en-rout. Or at least, what was left of his leg. A bloody stump greeted him and a glance into the troop hold showed him what the rest, including the piece of cut piping that had done the damage. With a growl he slapped medi-gel on the wound and turned back to the controls, what ever else happened he had to get to Omega and disappear fast. He grimaced as he realized his only choice was to call in a favor from her. But then, given a choice between death and Aria, he would choose the one that would let him get revenge for his leg.

There wasn't much love lost between him and Natalya by then. The only regret Yui had was leaving the girls behind. Still, he had to admit, the was one hell of a way to tell him she wanted a divorce. All because he stole one of her girlfriends.


	16. Chapter Thirteen: Dreadnought

Chapter Thirteen: Dreadnought

Yui checked over his guns while they waited in stealth near by the Destiny Ascension. The plan was simple, they let leak to Johnson's men that the Ascension was being moved for repairs at a new location with minimal guard to not attract attention, and then follow the Ascension till he take the bait. The guard on the ship is minimal but the Ascension itself was combat ready again and they had a fleet that would jump in to support her once the trap was sprung. While the fighting was going on the team was to board what an informant had told them was Johnson's flag-ship, kill him, and attempt to retake the ship if possible. No one was on the ships controls this time, a crew had been provided so that the full team could be deployed. Sheldon had vanished from the ship just before they deployed, no one seemed to know where he had gone and he hadn't answered any messages they sent. They couldn't wait any longer for him so they had left him for lost. So far the trip had been long and uneventful, Yui had nothing to do but drink, practice his swordsman ship, and blow off some steam by breaking Loki mechs in the cargo bay. Scarlet had taken to watching him with an amused expression while he did, occasionally making snarky remarks about how fearsome the mechs must be for him to put so much effort in fighting them.

Yui spun his blade through another set of moves killing invisible enemies around him while Scarlet watched in silence. He sliced the head off one last one before coming to a rest and sighing, "This is so fuckin boring. How long does it take for you to intercept a ship simulating engine trouble? I mean seriously, it's like they're trying to bore me to death." Scarlet laughed, "Ya well is there another way to kill you? I mean you were eaten by a thresher maw, you can't do more than that to someone can you?" Yui just smiled, "No I guess not. It's not the first time one of my clan got eaten by one anyway, we used to be hired out by some of the smaller clans to hunt them." Scarlet raised an eye brow at that, "Why did your clan get hired to do that?" He shrugged, "We lived on the salt plains. Can't think of another clan that was willing to do it so a lot of critters lived there, Varen packs, Harvesters and their Klixen, things like that. That got the attention of the Maws of course, so when we settled the land they were our biggest competition. We got known for it and tribes that couldn't fight Thresher Maws got us to do it if they could afford it. Didn't exactly help our numbers so we stayed small, but no one bothered us. Too small for the big clans to care and the smaller clans were too scared of us." Scarlet studied him as she asked the next question, "So what happened?" Yui grew still as he considered the question before answering, "My father grew arrogant and got all of us on the planet killed." She frowned, "Meaning what exact-" suddenly the intercoms came alive, "Specter you're going to want to get up to the bridge. The assault fleet just came under attack. They knew we were coming." Yui was moving before the intercoms cut off, "I'll tell you about it some other time. Right now we got more important things to do."

Scarlet and Yui got to bridge quickly and moved to the communication console Scarlet asking briskly, "We sure they were expecting us? Could it have just been luck?" The Turian captain called from his own station, "No, there was only one dreadnought with them and the other just jumped into system with us along with a small fleet. According to our information it's Johnson's flagship too, looks like they still plan on taking the Ascension and Johnson's going to oversee it himself. Without re-enforcement we don't have the fire power to take them, should we fall back?" Scarlet shook her head, "No have the Ascension open fire on them. Keep them ducking. The rest of the escorts are to provide close support for the Ascension while we move in for that dreadnought. You're going to drop us off on the boarding ship then go back to the rest of the group. While you guys keep them busy my team will board the dreadnought, find Johnson, and kill the son of a bitch." The captain nodded, "Understood. Coms relay the plan to the rest of the fleet, we're going to start our approach now. Get your team ready, this is going to have to be hard and fast." Scarlet nodded and Yui followed her out grinning. She glanced at him, "Your enjoying this aren't you?" He chuckled, "Hell ya I am. If I had known that all I had to do to get them to make their move was bitch then I would have done four days ago when this trip started. Hell if I had done it soon enough they might have even attacked the Citadel!"

Scarlet was still laughing when they got to the hanger where the team had agreed to meet if there was any sign of Johnson' fleet. "Ya like the Council would ever let us do something as insane as using the Citadel as bait." She looked over the team and nodded, "Right listen up kids, we're going to board Johnson's flagship, find him, kill him, and take over the ship. We're not going to have any back up and this boarding craft won't last long in open space with these guys around, so once we're there we're staying. Bring whatever you'll need for the fight, and leave behind anything unnecessary. Once we have the ship under control we bunker down and wait to get picked up. Questions, comments, concerns, other things I'm going to ignore because I don't actually care?" The team glanced at one another and Scooge suddenly perked up, "Hey if we're going to take over the ship, does that make us pirates?" Yui answered, "No it doesn't. It makes us privateers, what with the Council sayin we can do it and all that." Scooge thought about it, "So that makes us fancy government pirates then?" Yui considered that, "Well ya that's what a privateer is. I mean governments are basically thieves anyway, their workers might as well be pirates too." Scooge grinned and Scarlet shook her head, "Com'on no more slacking. Get what you'll need and get to the boarding ship." The team moved off to get their equipment with the exception of Yui and Scarlet. Yui always was combat ready anyway and Scarlet had kept her armor on saying that she wanted to be ready for combat at any time. They moved into the ship and waited for the others in silence. Yui suddenly spoke up, "We're probably not going to survive this you know. We'll kill Johnson then his men will just blow up the ship. It's either that or ours will." She just shrugged, "All I care about right now is getting rid of Johnson. Once he's dead we'll worry about the rest." Yui snorted, "You think a lot like Krogan you know that? Deal with what's in front of you now, worry about the future when that's in front of you later." He grinned a fierce grin, "I like it."

They sat in the shuttle they were using as a boarding craft with Gogzurah at the controls waiting for the crew to give them the go ahead for the boarding action. The ship guns were still silent, the stealth ship still hadn't been spotted. Yui wondered how much longer that was going to last though. Eventually they would at the very least be seen. There was a sudden feeling of movement in Yui's guts, the artificial gravity of the ship was shifting slightly with the movements of the ship as they suddenly entered into what Yui assume would be evasive maneuvers to avoid some kind of fire. A note played on Scarlet's Omni-tool, the first signal from the captain of the ship telling them that they should prepare of launch. Everyone grew tense in anticipation, a grin spreading across Yui's face as the atmosphere grew heavy, he was finally going to be able to tear something apart! He had been cooped up without anything to drink for far too long, he was ready to kill something. The second signal chimed through the cabin, final approach and the enemy would be in range for boarding. The hanger bay opened and sitting silent and massive in front of them was the dreadnought. Gogzurah gunned the engines even as they watched the ship launch a set of torpedoes aimed for a hanger bay that was going to be their entry point. They came in hard on the tail of the explosives but far enough back to not get caught in the explosion itself. They watched the hanger doors get torn apart and then the shuttle was engulfed in the smoke and derbies, then they weren't. They were in.

Gogzurah brought the shuttle to a halt as best he could but they still slammed into the deck and then the far wall of the hanger before their momentum spent. They came to a rest and Yui unhooked himself from his chair before the others and pushed his way over the shuttles door. He paused waiting for the others to gather themselves before cracking the seal and stepping out into the hanger of the dreadnought. He glanced at the hole they came in through, the automatic system had sealed the hanger with a mass effect field to stop the atmosphere from venting. He scanned the room and motioned that it looked clear. All he could see were some gunships sitting silent waiting for crews and a set off doors the lined the hanger's edges, and then glance back to the team, "Hey Red, which door we taking?" Scarlet pulled up the schematics the council had provided her, took a few moments to find their position in the ship before nodding to a door on the far side of the hanger; as they moved to the door she explained, "This hallway will lead us to the main hallways and that'll get us to the bridge. We're going to run into the crew along the way I'm sure but if we hurry we should be able to get to the target before they have time to organize any real defense." Scooge grunted, "What about locked doors? Without a tech specialist we'll be stuck." Yui just laughed, "Leave that to me. Before you guys my missions like this were low budget and tech specs were rare, so we improvised. I'll get any locks open no problem." Scooge started to respond till a sniper shot slammed into Yui's chest. His shields stopped it, but only just and everyone scrambled for the sparse cover of the hanger.

"Where is he damn it?", Yui put his back to the sniper and felt another round slam into him at what would have been head height, this one stopped by his armor. He glanced around looking for cover he could fit in when suddenly Gogzurah was standing in front of him resting a sniper rifle on his shoulder, "Stand very still Yui." There was a pause and this time two shots rang out at once. Yui felt one shot hit him, and the Turian had been the one shooting the other. Gogzurah lowered his rifle and stood up straight, "Got him." Yui just grunted before stomping over to the door that would lead into the ship. The door turned out to be unlocked and the team moved down the hall in silence. The deeper in they went the more tense the team became, they hadn't found any of the crew yet and they hadn't been stealthy about their entrance. The first locked door they found led into the main hallways, and Yui tore it open by driving his sword through the main locks and then forcing it open by brute strength. They shifted deeper and deeper but no one stood in their way. Finally they arrived at the bridge and stood outside studying it till Yui finally voiced what they were all thinking, "Where the hell IS everyone? Do they not care if we take over the entire bloody ship or something?" Scarlet shook her head, "Don't know and I don't like it but we can't really complain." She glanced around then sighed, "Where did the Vorcha go?" Yui snorted, "Do we care?" Scarlet smiled at that and shrugged, "He'll turn up eventually. Com'on let's go find Johnson and finish this."

The door to the bridge wasn't locked and a brief sweep of the entrance showed the room to be empty except for the controls, a metal container, and some sort of pedestal with a shard of something floating over it. They moved slowly and Yui took point as he eyed the odd item on the pedestal with a suspicion. He had seen it before, he knew it, but he couldn't put his finger on where. They drew closer to it and the main control panel slowly, checking the corners as they moved through the room but no one was there. Yui had an odd prickling feeling at the back of his mind that made him stop walking. The feeling was disturbing and one that he recognized finally. "What's wrong?" The rest of the team had stopped with him and were waiting on him to move again when suddenly the intercoms came to life with insane laughter, "Well well it took you longer to get here than I thought it would! I'm glad you all decided to visit my ship but you should all know that you will not be leaving it alive! BEHOLD MY GREATEST WEAPON!" The metal container opened with a hiss of air and a boom as the door hit the deck revealing a massive YMIR mech. "Fuck." The team scrambled for cover as the mech opened up with a pair of heavy machine guns.

Yui growled into the coms, "Give me some cover fire so I can get close!" Scooge and Gogzurah popped up at his call and opened fire before being driven back into cover by the return fire, but it gave Yui the opening he needed to move. Keeping his head low he charged with his sword leading the way, concerned only with closing the gap with the massive mech. The YMIR aimed one of its guns into the air and opened fire while the other started tracking the charging Krogan. Bullets started slamming into Yui and tore through his shields quickly but he was close enough that he got under the mech's arc of fire. Yui slammed his sword into the chest of the mech with a roar of rage as the prickling turned into an infuriating and painful scratching and sent sparks flying as the blade tore through it. With a snarl he drove the blade down and sliced through the hydraulics that kept the mech standing. There was a groan of metal as the mech pitch forward and Yui's mind caught up with his actions in time to realize that cutting those hydraulics might have been a bad idea as the mech came down on top of him. He braced himself desperately and stopped the heavy mech from crushing him. He began to push it back with a growl when a heavy thump came from above him. There was a rush of air and a flash of white as an explosion went off behind the mech. Both Yui and the YMIR were lifted bodily into the air before they slammed down into the deck two feet back from where they started.

Yui pushed himself up with a groan, a glance to check the damage read out on his omni-tool revealed that it had been fried in the explosion. The armor felt much heavier as well, apparently the hydraulics that had compensated somewhat for the weight of the heavy armor was off as well. He glanced at the mech and was surprised to see that the back of the heavy machine was melted away and the system was fried as well. He grunted and moved over to the destroy mech to retrieve his weapon. A quick check assured him that the weapon hadn't been damaged before he sheathed it and glanced up at the ceiling. The ventilation shaft had been shredded by gunfire and the vent cover hung open with a smiling Vorcha hanging out of it waving cheerfully as he held the now empty Cain in one hand. Yui on the other hand was not smiling. He most certainly wasn't waving. The intercoms came to life again, "I'm impressed you were able to defeat my personal custom mech. Very impressed indeed. But from what I've been told you no longer have a tech expert. I wonder, can you defeat this too?" The room was filled with warning sirens before a synthetic woman's voice came over the intercom warning them that the self-destruct system had been activated.

There was no hesitation and no conversation; team simply ran following the emergency signs and lights to the escape pods. Yui's leg had been fried along with the rest of his tech but he didn't let that slow him down too much. He was still falling a behind the others though and suddenly there was a scrambling of claws behind him. A glance showed the Vorcha was catching up to him, and the rest of the team had just rounded the corner in front of him. The Vorcha grabbed him and tried to use Yui as a push-off to speed himself up. Yui didn't think, the Vorcha had shot a mini nuke at him and now as trying to use him to get ahead and survive. His arm almost moved on its own as he lashed out with the sword he still had clutched in his hand. There was a wet crack and the hands that had pulled at his side and slowing him down were gone. He ignored the thud from behind him and instead let his adrenalin push him harder as he hurtled around the corner. He watched as Scarlet hurled a wave of Biotics in front of her, and then spotted the crewmen she was aiming at that were at the last of the escape pods in front of them. The crewmen were hurled against the walls and were still after they landed. He didn't know if they were dead or not but it didn't matter so long as they were out his way. Scooge took the pilot's seat and started to prepare the launch quickly. Yui was the last one to make it to the escape pod and hurled himself into it once he got there. The doors slammed shut behind him and there was a thump as the pod was launched.

The team sat around panting as they tried to get their breath back from the mad dash. Scarlet glance about before asking between breaths, "Where's Iscallic?" No one answered and Yui quietly sheathed his sword. Silence reined as Scooge activated the distress beacon and they all waited for the council ships to pick them up. They had managed to get rid of one of the dreadnoughts that had made Long John Johnson dangerous, but Johnson himself had gotten away. When one of the ships picked them up they were greeted by the sight of a Turian combat team looking for pirates. Once they had cleared themselves from accusations of being pirates Scarlet checked up on how the other battle had gone. The other dreadnought had been destroyed as well, and once the other heavy ships had been taken out the rest of the fleet had either fled the system or surrendered. The operation had been a success in the end, even if Johnson had gotten away. All that was left was to report back to the Citadel and deliver the debriefing to the Council.


	17. Epilogue

**Epilogue: Bottom of a Bottle**

Yui and Scarlet sat next to the Persidian lake in silence. The debriefing with the Council hadn't gone over like they had expected. After Scarlet finished her report the Council had congratulated her on eliminating the threat so well, and that they had decided that with the fleet gone Johnson was no longer a real threat. Since he was no longer a threat Scarlet's team was now pointless so they were withdrawing their support from any further operations involving a "minor pirate." They also informed Yui that while they had ignored him for the sake of the operation, there were many outstanding warrants for both his arrest and the arrest of his children. As a thank you for his work with Scarlet they would allow him a few days to arrange for his departure from the Citadel, but would no longer tolerate his presence or influence on a Specter team. Should he remain with the team the Council would be forced to order Scarlet to arrest him. Scarlet had gotten angry at that, and had started to defend him but Yui simply put a hand on her shoulder and shook his head. He thanked the Council for the time they were giving him and had led Scarlet out of the Council chambers. He promised to find her later before splitting off from Scarlet to start arranging transport out of system for him and his daughters. It wasn't like the doctors here could do anything for Deras anymore anyway.

When Yui had found Scarlet she was sitting in a park that was torn to hell and back, apparently the result of a drunken rage on her part by the looks of the empty bottles scattered around. He was surprised that C-Sec hadn't shown up already but hadn't wanted to push their luck so he had hurried her away from there. Now he sat with his own bottle drinking quietly beside the Asari specter studying the calm waters. She hadn't said anything since he had found her and he was surprised to see she had been crying.

Finally she broke the silence, "You know this is the first time I haven't had to drink to the dead from my team. When I was in the Asari military everyone was scared to work with me. Even routine patrol missions would end with fire fights with slavers and pirates that got half my team killed. I got put in with the Huntresses so that it wasn't as bad after that, but I still lost most of my teams. I always won, always completed the missions, but it was always for a heavy price. That's how I got my nickname, any mission I went one would be "colored by scarlet blood" is what they said."

Yui didn't answer and simply took another pull of his bottle before offering it to Scarlet. She took it with a grateful nod and took a sip. She started coughing up a storm as she handed it back to him, "What's in that bottle?"

"Ryncol," he grunted" " And I assumed you were called Scarlet for those tats of yours." She just shook her head before pulling her knees up and setting her chin on them, "This is my first team that didn't end up dead, and it's not even me that kept them alive."

Yui glanced at her in surprise, "What are you talking about, of course you kept them alive." Scarlet laughed dryly, "Listen to you, 'of course you kept them alive' like you weren't even on the team. You were the first through the doors, the front of the charges, hell you were the one that climbed into the mouth of a Thresher Maw to make sure it wasn't paying attention to us. You were the one that kept us all alive long enough to get to the Dreadnought."

Yui waited for a few seconds as she lapsed back into silence before sighing, "When I was just a free pirate I always sent the new guys through the door first. Had them lead the charge and all that. Used them as a meat shield to soak up bullets so that I wouldn't have to. Now why do you think I didn't do that to you guys?"

She studied him in surprise while she considered his question before shrugging, "Cause you wanted to go straight?" Yui laughed at that, "No. It's because you reminded me of Natalya."

Scarlet frowned, "That's not exactly encouraging after seeing you ripe her head off." Yui laughed, "Well now I know you better, but at first it was because of how you looked and how you stood aloft at first, and she was the one that had me leading from the front like that. Thought it was what you would expect from me. When I got to know you better and you stopped bein so… lofty, I kept it up to try to impress you. So really it was you that kept everyone alive, cause I wouldn't have done anything for anyone else otherwise."

Scarlet stared at him as he drained the rest of his bottle and set the empty down beside him. He turned to the side and there was a clink of glass as he pulled out a new bottle and opened it. "How much of that have you drunk?" Yui paused the shrugged before he took a pull of the bottle, "Dunno. A lot. I don't think I can walk right now if that helps. Pretty sure I would end up drowning in the lake or something if I tried."

Scarlet and Yui sat for a long time drinking in silence before the bottle was empty and they sat watching the traffic go by.

After a while a C-Sec officer came asking them if they had seen anyone destroying a park or anything suspicious that night, both said they hadn't. Maybe he should go ask around the wards. Finally Yui gingerly got to his feet, swaying gently before finding his balance. He offered a hand to Scarlet, "Let's get out of here before C-Sec comes back to kick us out or somethin. I got a hotel room before we went to see the Council, we can stay there if you don't feel like sleeping on the ship."

Scarlet took his hand pulled herself into him and breathed into his ear, "Sure. But sleeping isn't what I want to do there." Yui just grinned, "Neither do I."

When she woke up the next morning he was gone, and a message was left on the side table, "Something came up with the kids, had to leave the Citadel early and in a hurry. Hope to see you at home." The bottom of the message had longitude and latitude coordinates, but no planet name, and no system. But then she didn't need either, she knew which planet he meant. The next time they saw each other would be on an old salt plain just outside a set of rusty ruins on the surface of Tuchanka.

_Two Years Later_

Bullets buzzed around Scarlet like angry bees, filling the air with metal death and keeping her from fighting back. She tried her coms again but the jammer was still running so it was pointless. The fire finally died down to nothing, leaving her wondering where they had gone. A hiss started up behind her and a white smoke started to fill the room. She scrambled to pull out her helmet but it was too late, her eyes were already growing heavy and her hands wouldn't listen to her anymore as they fumbled weakly at her belt. She slumped forward with a thud and fought the drug futilely. She listened to footsteps coming from far away and saw a pair of boots though the ever lengthening tunnel that was her vision. "Bring her. Mister Johnson wants new test subjects."

**_A/N: Well that ends the part of Hei Yui's story. While I know this wasn't the most regularly updated or read story, I do intend on continuing it in a new story (insert name here) which will be a direct sequel to Krogans and beers. It will be taking place two years after this story, around the same time of Shepards return._**


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